THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OE  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


/-^^^^  /^^„ 


IDOLS   AND   IDEALS. 


BY    TJIE    SAME    AUTHOR. 


THE  SACRED  ANTHOLOGY  (Oriental). 
A  Book  of  Ethnical  Scriptures.  Collected  ami 
edited  by  M.  D.  Conway.  Fifth  edition,  121110, 
(uniform  with  the  Carlyle  and  Milton  Anthologies), 

THE      EARTHWARD     PlL(iRlMAOE. 

i2mo. 

n:)OI,S  AND  n)EALS,  with  an  Essay  on 
Christianity.      i2mo, 

HENRY   HOLT   &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS,  N    Y. 


Idols  and  Ideals 


AN    ESSAY  ON  CHRISTIANITY. 


moncurp:  danikl  conway,  m.a., 

Author  of  "  'J'/i<:  Sacred  Anthology,''  "  The 
Earthward  Fi/grif/fagc,"  etc. 


NEW    YORK 
IIKNRY    IlOl/r    AND    COMPANY 

1877. 


Cui'VKiGiir  liv 

H  K  N  R  Y     H  ()  LI'  , 

iS77- 


'SI 


INDEX. 


IDOLS    AND    IDEALS. 


Consequences        .         .          .... 

r.\GE 

5 

Growing  Superstitions 

23 

Faith,  Fact,  and  Fairy  Tale  .... 

49 

The  Praying  Machine    ..... 

63 

The  Pre-Darwinite  and  Post-Darwinite  World 

79 

Footprints  of  the  Great 

105 

Anthropomorphism 

119 

The  Dream  of  Socrates 

145 

Flower  and  Thorn 

163 

Real  and  Ideal 

175 

The  Angel  of  Death 

201 

CHRISTIANITY 

PAGE 

Its  Morning  Star  .........  5 

Its  Dawn       ..........  4c 

Its  Day 65 

Its  Decline     .         .          ........  83 

Its  Afterglow          .........  loi 

The  Morrow.         .........  121 

1..73e334 


CONSEQUENCES. 


^^ 


CONSEQUENCES. 


N  unhappy  sign  in  any  country  is  the  appearance 
of  pessimist  speculations.  Some  EngUsh  eyes 
appear  to  be   troubled  with  the   vision   of  a 


black  star  hovering  over  their  country,   threatening  the 
wealth,  greatness,   and  even  the  stability  of  the  nation. 
There  are  apprehensions  that  the  coal  will  give  out,  and 
with  it  all  the  manufacturing  and  railway  enterprises  which 
make  the  commercial  supremacy  of  England ;  next,  that 
the  intelligence  of  the  country  is  alienated  from  its  religion, 
which  renders  it  certain  that  the  masses  of  the  people  will 
presently  be  also  alienated  from  it ;  and  since  these  will  be 
without  the  restraints  of  culture,  the  downfall  of  creeds 
will  involve  the  downfall  of  the  social  and  political  insti- 
tutions which  have  growTi  up  along  with  the  creeds,  It  will 
require,   say  our  sad  soothsayers,  a   culture    and  refine- 
ment which  the  masses  do  not  possess,  to  detach  the  social 
organism  from  the  dogmatic  parasites  which  have  grown 
around  it ;  and  when  the  scepticism  of  the  educated  has 
filtered   down  into  them,  they  will  make  a  rude,  indis- 
criminate sweep  of  good  and  evil  alike.     Then  "enter" 
Macaulay's  New  Zealander    with    sketch-book,    seeking 
picturesque  ruins ! 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  essay  to  consider  the 
particular  perils  pointed  out  by  our  prophets  of  evil.  I 
merely  refer  to  their  warnings  as  illustrative  of  apprehen- 
sions felt  by  many  in  another  direction,  namely,  the  effect 
of  religious  inquiry  on  human  happiness  and  character. 
And  I  do  so  because  such  apprehensions  appear  to  me  to 
rest  upon  fallacies  quite  similar  to  those  fears  of  the  results 
of  free  inquiry  which  I  propose  to  consider.  The  main 
fallacy  is  the  fear  that  the  same  intelligence  which  has 
adapted  man  to  his  present  condition  is  to  remain  standing 
still  while  everything  else  changes.  Our  coal  mines,  it 
may  be,  are  gradually  to  diminish,  possibly  to  fail ;  but 
will  that  intellect  which  has  invented  steam  engines,  and 
other  machinery,  lose  its  power  of  invention,  and  for  the 
first  time  show  itself  inadequate  to  meet  emergencies  as 
they  arise  ?  Is  the  future  to  have  all  our  problems,  and 
to  be  without  brains  of  its  own  ?  So  also  in  the  case  of 
the  violent  revolution  apprehended,  when  the  masses  share 
the  scepticism  of  the  educated.  Our  wode  ravens  for- 
get, apparently,  that  such  a  change  as  that  cannot  be  an 
isolated  one.  Is  it  an  enthusiasm  to  believe  that  in  the 
same  length  of  time  a  thousand  other  changes  will  also 
occur ;  that,  for  instance,  the  masses  must  actjuire  some 
of  the  calmness  and  self-control  of  the  cultivated  along 
with  their  scepticism ;  and  also  that  the  social  fabric  will 
improve,  that  the  state  will  become  nobler,  and  all 
classes  possess  too  much  interest  in  both  to  handle  rashly 
any  real  and  healthy  institution  ? 

This  whole  method  of  api)rehension  is  treacherous. 
When  Jesus  said,    "  Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  eviH 


CONSEQ  UENCES. 


thereof;  to-morrow  will  take  care  of  to-morrow's  affairs,'' 
— he  uttered  a  thought  pregnant  with  philosophy  as  with 
faith.  The  plan  of  prognosticating  practical  evil  has  now 
become  a  favourite  method  of  trying  to  intimidate  free 
thought  and  free  speech.  This  plan  has  been  carried  to 
its  extreme  by  the  present  Bishop  of  Peterborough,  who 
said  that  he  would  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  the  tidings 
of  science  were  true  or  not ;  he  only  asked  whether  they 
were  glad  tidings.  Not  finding  them  glad  tidings — and 
they  certainly  are  not  promising  for  bishops — his  lordship 
unhesitatingly  rejects  them,  irrespective  of  their  truth  or 
untruth.  The  Bishop  only  caricatures  a  way  of  dealing 
with  new  truth  which  is  being  more  plausibly  used  by  many 
others  than  by  this  prelate,  who  has  so  well  merited  the 
thanks  of  scientific  men  by  his  naive  utterance. 

Most  of  us,  whose  memories  run  back  towards  the 
beginning  of  this  generation,  must  recognise  a  marked 
change  in  the  tone  of  orthodoxy  concerning  rationalism. 
In  place  of  the  old  intolerance,  we  now  find  a  tone  of 
apology,  and  meet  with  numbers  of  people  who  are 
eager  to  persuade  us  that  they  are  not  so  orthodox  as 
they  seem.  Again,  we  are  as  often  appealed  to  to 
exercise  charity  as,  in  earlier  times,  we  have  had  to 
appeal  for  it  ourselves.  It  is  to  be  hoped  we  shall  all 
cultivate  that  virtue,  but  heretics  cannot  shut  their  eyes 
to  the  novelty  of  the  situation.  When  cremation  was 
lately  proposed,  and  was  bitterly  denounced  by  the 
Catholic  clergy  in  Belgium,  a  paper  in  that  country 
remarked  that  it  was  a  pity  the  Church  which  so 
opposed  burning  the  bodies  of  the  dead  had  not  always 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


manifested  an  equal  repugnance  to  burn  the  bodies 
of  the  living ;  similarly,  it  is  an  instance  of  the  irony  of 
history  that  successors  of  the  religionists  who  so  long 
ruled  England  by  reign  of  terror  should  now  appeal  for 
charity.  Even  Protestantism,  when  it  followed  Romanism, 
in  power,  did  not  break  its  terrible  weapons;  it  used 
them  until  they  become  dull.  Reduced  at  last  to  battle 
in  an  Age  of  Reason,  and  to  answer  argument  with 
argument  'instead  of  with  prisons  and  persecutions,  it 
calls  for  the  toleration  it  so  long  denied.  Very  well, 
let  us  have  it, — charity  for  all !  We  may  doubt  whether 
we  should  have  heard  so  much  about  it  had  Superstition 
continued  as  strong  as  of  old, — but  still  the  high  rule  of 
reason  is  to  speak  the  truth  in  love. 

At  the  same  time,  long  experience  should  make  us 
prudent.  The  more  valuable  a  coin  the  more  dan- 
gerous is  its  counterfeit,  and  the  more  attractive  a  virtue 
the  more  necessary  that  its  garb  shall  not  be  con- 
ceded to  its  opposite.  Charity  is  due  to  every  sincere 
man,  but  not  to  proven  error.  If  a  man  be  in  error,, 
the  more  I  love  him  the  more  will  I  hate  the  falsity 
that  misleads  him.  When  the  wolf  pleaded  for  com- 
passion, the  shepherd  replied,  "Mercy  to  you  were 
cruelty  to  the  lamb."  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  can 
be  consistent  with  love  to  our  fellow-beings  that  we 
should  be  tender  to  the  errors  that  afflict  them,  or  to  the 
superstition  that  devours  them.  Clemency  becomes 
cruelty  when  it  parts  from  common  sense. 

All  this  is  too  plain  to  require  argument.  But  of  late 
its  force  has  been  escaped  by  another  plea.     We  are 


CONSEQUENCES. 


now  told  that  in  the  progress  of  the  world  the  old  beliefs 
have  lost  their  darker  features.  The  old  talons  of 
persecution  have  been  pared  away ;  fanaticism  has 
become  unfashionable ;  hell  has  been  spiritualised  ;  and 
creeds  that  once  roused  agony,  fear,  and  consequent 
intolerance  are  now  softened  into  unrealised  words  or 
mystical  meanings.  Superstitions  may  remain,  but  they 
are  now  pretty  superstitions,  like  a  child's  belief  in  fairies. 
And  we  are  asked,  Is  it  not  unnecessary,  nay  cruel,  to  take 
away  such  sweet  illusions,  when  they  are  so  harmless  ? 
A  gentleman  who  takes  his  family  to  church  regularly, 
said  to  me,  "  I  know  as  well  as  any  one  that  the  clergy- 
man preaches  fables,  but  I  do  not  care  to  worry  my 
children  by  telling  them  so.  When  I  take  them  to  the 
pantomime,  I  don't  tell  them,  All  that  scenery  is  only 
daubed  pasteboard,  the  fairy  there  is  merely  a  painted 
woman,  and  her  jewels  only  glass,  bought  for  a  penny. 
AVhether  at  church  or  theatre  I  prefer  to  humour  their 
I)leasant  illusions,  and  let  them  remain  happy  in  them  as 
long  as  they  can."  It  appeared  to  me  strange  that  this 
gentleman  should  not  see  the  great  difference  between 
transient  illusion  and  permanent  delusion.  He  humours 
the  illusions  of  the  pantomime,  because  he  knows  very  well 
that  his  child  will  outgrow  them.  It  would  distress  him  very 
much  if  he  thouglit  that,  when  his  child  grew  to  be  twenty 
years  of  age,  it  would  still  believe  in  the  reality  of 
fairies.  But,  in  encouraging  the  pulpit  fables,  he  is 
fostering  things  that,  from  being  the  illusions  of  child- 
hood, harden  into  the  delusions  of  the  whole  life. 

Mr.  Tennyson  has  put  this  common  notion  into  rhyme. 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


and  his  verses  are  the  favourite  quotation  of  the  school 
we  are  considering.  They  were  recently  offered  by  the 
Athenceian  as  a  rebuke  to  Mr.  Morley  for  his  excellent 
work  "  On  Compromise,"  and  again  by  a  plausible  writer 
in  censure  of  the  plain-speaking  of  certain  pulpits.  The 
verses  run  thus  : 

"  O  thou  that  after  toil  and  storm 

May'st  seem  to  have  reach'd  a  purer  air, 
Whose  faith  has  centre  everywhere. 
Nor  cares  to  fix  itself  to  form. 

"  Leave  thou  thy  sister,  when  she  prays, 
Her  early  heaven,  her  happy  views. 
Nor  thou  with  shadow' d  hint  confuse 
A  life  that  leads  melodious  days." 

These  verses  are  nearly  the  only  ones  which  the  poet 
and  his  friends  might  wish  obliterated  from  Ins  fair  pages, 
as  representing  (one  must  believe)  his  first  timorous  and 
unsteady  step  on  a  path  which  we  may  hope  has  since 
led  to  heights  that  shame  their  faithless  fears.  Passing 
their  undertone  of  contempt  for  the  female  intellect,  of 
which  the  poet  was  probably  unconscious,  let  us  consider 
what  our  duty  is  to  that  praying  sister,  or  brother  either, 
whose  illusions  we  are  called  upon  to  spare.  If  our 
sister  is  praying  in  earnest,  if  doubt  has  not  crept  into 
her  heart — we  must  not  call  it  her  intellect,  I  suppose — 
then  her  faith  does  not  merely  include 

"  Her  early  heaven,  her  happy  views,'' 
but  also  her  early  hell,  and  some  most  unhappy  views. 
If  her  prayer  be  not   a  mere  attitude,  she  is  probably 
imploring   an   angry    God    not   to   send    her   children, 


CONSEQ  UENCES. 


brothers,  or  friends  into  everlasting  anguish  and  despair. 
If  that  be  her  creed,  she  can  hardly  be  leading  such 
melodious  days  that  it  should  be  cruel  to  hint  that  her 
apprehensions  may  be  unfounded. 

But  the  poet  might  remind  us  that  he  asks  us  to  leave 
her  the  pleasing  side  of  her  creed  only — to  remove  her 
fears,  but  humour  her  hopes  though  they  be  false.  Our 
sister  must  be  feeble  indeed  if  this  be  possible ;  her 
powers  must  be  very  weak  if  she  does  not  perceive  that 
her  Bible  and  her  Praver-Book  tell  her  as  much  of  God's 
wrath  as  of  his  love,  correlate  hell  and  heaven,  and  that, 
from  such  source,  she  has  no  better  authority  for  her  hopes 
than  for  her  fears.  But  granting  that  the  process  be 
possible,  and  that  we  find  her  living  in  an  atmosphere 
of  rosy  delusions,  the  question  arises,  ought  we  to  avoid 
disturbing  them  ?  Do  not  let  us  confuse  that  question 
with  any  other.  It  is  not  whether  we  should  obtrude 
our  opinions  on  others,  but  whether  v/e  should  sanction 
their  opinions  when  we  believe  them  false  ;  it  is  not 
whether  we  should  be  rude,  but  whether  we  should  be 
sincere.  One  who  loves  truth  will  not  need  exhortation 
to  try  and  make  it  attractive  instead  of  repulsive.  The 
danger  is  the  other  way,  that  truth  will  be  so  smooth  and 
polite  as  not  to  be  recognised  for  what  it  really  is.  The 
real  question  is  whether  truth  should  be  concealed  and 
suppressed  out  of  consideration  for  any  one's  pleasant 
prejudices. 

It  is  perfectly  easy  to  show  on  general  principles  that 
such  tampering  with  truth  is  disloyal  and  more  dangerous 
than  honest  error  itself.     It  is  easy  to  show  that  to  sup- 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


press  truth  is  to  suggest  falsehood ;  that  it  is  to  foster 
a  malarious  atmosphere  which  brings  forth  not  only- 
pretty  superstitions  but  ugly  ones,  and  leaves  the  mind 
to  be  overgrown  not  only  with  gay  weeds  but  rank  poisons  ; 
that  where  a  pleasant  fiction  finds  shelter  a  dangerous 
error  may  nestle  at  its  side  ;  and  that  if  the  great  souls 
of  history  had  smoothed  over  falsehood  because  it  was 
agreeable,  and  remained  silent  before  the  pet  prejudices 
of  weak  minds,  we  should  all  be  worshipping  to-day  the 
painted  fetish  dolls  of  the  world's  infancy. 

But  I  propose  at  present  to  look  at  the  matter  from 
another  and  somewhat  lower  point  of  view.  This  theory 
of  suppression  is  not  only  immoral,  but  rests  upon  an 
essential  delusion.  That  delusion  is  that  truth  is  hard, 
cold,  unlovely,  and  that  all  the  beauty  rests  with  the 
illusions.  The  prevalence  of  this  notion  is  easily  ex- 
plained. It  is  the  natural  tendency  of  an  existing  dog- 
matic system,  when  it  finds  some  of  its  points  coming 
into  collision  with  common  sentiment,  to  smooth  and 
explain  them  away,  cover  them  with  velvet,  so  as  to  make 
itself  as  attractive  as  possible ;  and  one  of  the  oldest 
tricks  of  dogmatic  art  is  to  paint  the  opposing  view  in  as 
dark  colours  as  possible  to  make  itself  more  pleasing  by 
the  contrast.  The  early  Christians  painted  their  own 
saints  with  beautiful  tints  on  church  windows,  but  the 
saints  of  other  religions  they  painted  as  demons  with 
terrible  horns  and  flaming  eyes  ;  and  the  descendants  of 
those  early  Christians  have  not  lost  their  art.  We  know 
their  skill  in  theologic  gargoyles, — the  infidel  on  his  death- 
bed stirroimded  by  horrors,  the  materialist  given  up  to 


CONSEQUENCES. 


sensuality,  the  man  of  science  living  in  an  Arctic  sea  of 
negation,  perishing  without  hope.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
with  these  forbidding  chimeras  in  the  distance  so  many 
are  frightened  back  from  the  search  for  truth,  and  beg 
that  the  realm  of  delusions  may  be  spared. 

But  there  is  one  suspicious  circumstance  about  all  these 
pictures  of  the  results  of  beliefs  so  invested  with  horrors ; 
they  are   depicted  by  those   who  have  never  held  those 
beliefs,  who  have  no   experience  of  their  real  bearings, 
and  who  must  therefore  have  drawn  upon  their  imagina- 
tion for  their  facts.     We  do  not  hear  the  actual  mate- 
rialist complaining  that  his  belief  is  hopeless,  nor   the 
real  heretic  crying  out  that  he  is  in  icy  despair.     They 
seem  about  as  hearty  and  cheerful  as  other  people.     In 
one  of  our  popular  dramas,  a  rigidly  righteous  old  lady 
is  troubled  because  a  certain  blind  youth  is  constantly 
cheerful ;  regarding  blindness  as  sent  by  an  afflicting  pro- 
vidence she  shakes  her  head  at  the  young  man's  happiness, 
and  says  that  when  tribulation  is  sent  to  us  we  ought  to 
tribulate.     This  old  lady,  who,  never  having  been  blind, 
knew  nothing  of  its  resources,   seems  to  have  written  a 
good  deal  of  modern  theology.     I  do  not  deny  that  there 
is  a  certain  naturalness  about  her  inferences  concerning 
things  she  knows  nothing  about.     When  she  appears  in 
the  guise  of  a  popular  preacher  or  a  doctor  of  divinity, 
he  sits  down  to  consider  what  he  would  be  and  do  if  he 
(other^vise,  of  course,  retaining  his  present  views)  were  a 
materialist,    or  a  sceptic,  and  how  Paine  and  Voltaire 
must  have  died-if  they  died  logically.     But  having  never 
tried  it,  he  is  compelled  to  evolve  each  result  out  ot  his 


14  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

inner  consciousness.  The  image  so  evolved  must  sooner 
or  later  be  brought  face  to  face  with  the  fact,  and  the 
contrast  between  ihe  two  is  sometimes  astonishing.  Let 
us  review  a  few  examples. 

In  former  times,  theologians  could  not  imagine  that 
any  man  could  have  an  actual  and  conscientious  disbelief 
of  their  dogmas.  They  attributed  all  scepticism  to  an 
evil  heart,  or  to  a  desire  to  forget  and  hide  the  truth  lest 
it  might  check  their  evil  propensities.  This  being  their 
premiss,  it  was  but  a  natural  inference  that  all  sceptics 
must  be  wicked  men.  Thus  Thomas  Paine  was  branded 
as  a  drunkard — a  pure  fabrication — and  Voltaire  stigma- 
tised for  immoralities  of  which  he  was  innocent.  But 
there  was  another  inference.  These  men  being  only 
pretended  unbelievers,  it  was  but  natural  that  when  the 
hour  of  death  arrived,  the  disguise  should  fall,  the  truth 
come  out,  and  the  terrors  it  was  impossible  really  to  dis- 
believe then  come  so  close  that  they  would  cry  for  mercy 
and  die  in  the  agonies  of  remorse.  To  suit  that  theory 
fictitious  scenes  were  invented  for  the  deathbed  of  Paine, 
who  died  most  peacefully,  and  that  of  Voltaire,  whose 
only  trouble  in  his  closing  hours  was  that  the  priests  hung 
about  him  like  vultures. 

But  that  old  theory  broke  down.  The  upright  lives 
of  such  men  as  Hume,  and  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  and 
Bolingbroke,  and  their  peaceful  deaths,  reduced  it  to 
absurdity.  There  has  succeeded  to  it  another — that 
unless  a  man  believe  in  immortality,  his  life  must  be 
selfish,  and  he  must  have  an  excessive  horror  of  death  ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  believer  in  heaven  sacrifices 


CONSEQUENCES.  15 


present  for  future  happiness,  and  dies  with  joyful  hope. 
But  this  theory  breaks  down  under  the  facts  just  like  the 
other.  The  sceptical  philosophers  around  us  are  apparently 
no  more  selfish  than  other  people.  If  they  were  devoted 
to  self,  they  would  take  care  first  of  all  not  to  express 
their  scepticism.  There  are  eminent  men  of  science 
around  us,  unbelievers  in  Animism,  whose  abilities  might 
have  made  them  bishops,  but  whose  self-sacrificing  devo- 
tion to  what  they  believe  true,  causes  them  to  live  in 
poverty,  and  under  the  denunciation  of  the  comfortable 
souls  who  find  godliness  to  be  great  gain.  Nor  do  we 
find  that  heretics  have  any  greater  dread  of  death  than 
believers  in  a  future  life.  The  orthodox  man  for  whom 
the  grave  is  a  gate  to  Paradise,  sends  for  the  doctor  just 
as  fast  as  the  sceptic,  and  never  seems  in  any  hurry  to 
enjoy  his  future  bliss.  On  the  other  hand,  no  martyrs 
have  ever  marched  more  fearlessly  to  death  than  the 
revolutionists  of  France  and  Germany,  who,  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten,  were  unbelievers  in  any  future  life.  The 
unbeliever  in  a  future  life  has  not,  indeed,  much  reason 
for  the  gloom  commonly  ascribed  to  him.  If  he  has  lost 
expectation  of  future  joys,  he  has  equally  lost  all  apprehen- 
sion of  future  woes ;  and,  so  far  as  the  natural  desire  for 
continued  existence  is  concerned,  he  knows  that,  if  it  is 
to  be,  he  will  attain  it  just  as  much  as  any  believer  in  it 
with  the  advantage  that  it  will  not  have  for  a  part  of  it 
the  torture  of  some  of  his  friends. 

Let  us  take  another  case, — the  common  idea  of  what  it 
is  to  be  a  fatalist  or  necessitarian.  The  believer  in  Free- 
will sits  down  and  evolves  from  his  inner  consciousness. 


1.6  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

the  typical  believer  in  Necessity.  As  the  fatalist  believes 
that  what  will  be  will  be  ;  that  nothing  can  be  altered  by 
the  will  of  man  ;  so,  he  must  assuredly  be  a  man  who  sits 
passive  and  allows  things  to  take  their  own  course.  But 
when  ourspeculative  believer  in  Free-will  comes  to  examine 
the  facts,  he  finds  that  the  most  active  figures  in  history 
have  been  those  same  believers  in  fate.  They  are  suck 
men  as  the  heroes  of  Greece ;  as  Paul  and  Mahomet ,; 
Luther,  Calvin,  and  John  Knox  ;  as  Cxomwell  and  his 
soldiers  ;  as  the  Puritans  who  founded  the  American 
Commonwealth ;  men,  aggressive,  powerful,  irresistible, 
who  have  left  their  impress  on  the  world  in  epochs ;  men, 
too,  who,  instead  of  finding  in  their  election  to  divine 
favour,  a  reason  for  self-indulgence,  felt  in  it  an  inspira- 
tion to  surrender  their  every  power  to  what  they  conceived 
to  be  the  will  of  God. 

As  a  final  example,  we  have  before  us  the  ordinary 
conception  of  a  materialist.  Very  few  people  are  com- 
petent to  pursue  those  philosophical  studies  which 
underlie  the  various  conclusions  called  nominalism, 
realism,  intuitionalism,  utihtarianism,  idealism,  material- 
ism. But  the  latter  word  has  a  familiar  sound  : 
materialism  is  related  to  matter,  and  matter  plainly  means 
the  earth,  and  flesh  and  blood,  food  and  drink  ;  conse- 
quently a  materialist  must  mean  a  gross,  fleshly  character, 
a  man  who  believes  in  nothing  he  cannot  bite,  and,  as 
opposed  to  the  idealist,  he  must  be  a  man  without  ideas. 
This  popular  notion  of  a  materialist  recalls  the  sad  fate 
of  one  of  our  artists,  who  made  a  sea-side  picture,  and 
amon<^   the  common  objects  of  the  sea-side  which  be 


CONSEQUENCES.  1 7 


painted  on  the  sands  was  a  blood-red  lobster.  He  had 
never  seen  a  lobster,  except  as  boiled  for  the  table, 
and  he  supposed  it  had  the  same  colour  when  washed 
up  from  the  sea.  He  painted  in  accordance  with  his 
experience ;  and  his  surprising  work  so  added  to  his 
experience,  that  he  is  now,  I  believe,  a  respectable  mer- 
chant. And  so  the  average  orthodox  man  bestows  on  the\ 
materialist  his  own  experience  of  matter,  and  boils  him 
in  the  hot  water  of  his  catechetic  consciousness  very  red. 
But  when  we  come  to  consider  the  materialists  as  they 
are,  we  find  them  quite  the  reverse.  It  would  be  difficult  ' 
— I  might  almost  say  impossible — to  find  in  the  long  list  / 
of  eminent  materialists  a  single  gross  or  sensual  character, 
English  materialists  have  been  known  to  us  as  men 
especially  consecrated  to  ideas.  They  have  been  such 
men  as  Shelley,  in  whose  poems  of  Nature  Robert 
Browning  found  a  high  correspondency  with  the  divine  ;  \ 
or  Robert  Owen,  and  his  fellow  socialists,  giving  up  life 
and  fortune  in  the  pursuit  of  an  ideal  society  ;  and  such 
men  are  fairly  followed  to-day  by  the  men  of  science,  and 
the  positivists,  and  the  secularists — men  of  plain  living  / 
and  high  thinking,  almost  ascetic  in  their  self-denial,  and 
ever  dreaming  of  higher  education,  of  co-operation,  and 
of  other  schemes  for  the  moral,  intellectual,  or  social 
advancement  of  mankind.  Such  are  the  men  for  whom 
Christian  prelates  in  their  palaces  sigh,  deploring  amid 
their  luxury,  the  gross  materialism  of  the  times  ! 

Now,  let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  The  fact  that 
believers  in  these  several  doctrines  have  contradicted  by 
their  lives  and  characters  the  a  priori  theories  formed 

2 


1 8  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

about  them,  does  not  prove  their  doctrines  true.  The 
fact  that  Thomas  Paine,  when  the  Americans  offered  him 
money  for  his  writing's,  refused  to  take  it,  poor  as  he  was, 
but  devoted  it  to  the  cause  of  Uberty,  refutes  the  idea 
that  an  infidel  must  be  selfish  ;  but  it  does  not  prove 
Paine's  belief  to  be  true.  Nor  does  the  life  of  Paul  prove 
the  truth  of  predestination,  nor  that  of  Shelley  the  truth 
of  materiaUsm.  As  little  do  such  facts  show  that  there  is 
no  connection  between  intellectual  convictions  and 
practical  life.  What  such  facts  do  show,  is  just  this  : 
that  the  implied  method  of  dealing  with  questions  is 
treacherous.  Truth  is  not  to  be  tested  by  anyone's 
speculative  apprehensions  as  to  its  results.  It  is  as  if  a 
painter  should  sit  down  at  the  base  of  a  hill  he  has  never 
ascended,  to  sketch  the  landscape  which  he  supposes  to  be 
seen  from  its  summit.  The  height  may  command  out- 
looks he  cannot  imagine  until  he  has  climbed  it.  If  the 
orthodox  believer  really  occupied  the  point  of  view  reached 
by  the  thinker  seen  only  from  his  own,  he  might  find  him 
surrounded  by  prospects,  forces,  influences,  which  alter 
the  case  materially.  Every  liberal  thinker's  experience 
must  confirm  this.  The  free-thinker  knows  well  that  it  is 
the  sign  of  an  embryonic  phase  of  inquiry,  to  dread  its 
consequences  upon  the  character  or  happiness  of  any  man, 
woman,  or  child.  It  has  not  brought  gloom  to  himself, 
nor  demoralization  ;  he  does  not  find  his  life  a  discord  in 
contrast  with  any  "  melodious  days  "  when  he  believed 
in  a  jealous  God  and  a  yawning  hell;  he  knows  that 
truthfulness  is  the  sustaining  thing,  and  the  ardent  pursuit 
of  truth  able  to  fill  heart  and  brain  with  enthusiasm  and 


CONSEQUENCES.  »9 


hope  Why  should  he  imagine  that  what  has  brought  to 
himself  liberation  and  hght  should  bring  a  shadow  on  the 
life  of  his  "  praying  sister,"  whom  he  can  only  regard  as 
a  victim  on  whom  Superstition,  like  a  ghoul,  is  preying? 

The  free  inquirer  will  discover  full  soon  that  the  only 
"  saving  faith"  is  a  perfect  trust  in  truth,  and  that  the 
only  real  infidelity  is  the  belief  that  a  lie  can  do  better 
work   than   truth.     He  will  take  to  heart  Montaigne's 
advice,   and  fear  only  Fear.     No  alarms  about  the  con- 
seciuences  of  the  diffusion  of  truth  can  shake  his  nerves 
or  cause  the  balance  to  tremble  in  his  hand.     Truth  has 
ever  justified  herself.      She  can  look  back  to  fair  results, 
to  the  noblest  triumphs,  and  in  their  light  see  the  chains 
that  bind  all  the  lions  on  her  path.     We  pursue  our  in- 
quiries, not  without  experience,  not  in  the  infancy  of  the 
world,  but  amid  the  mighty  shades  of  heroic  forerunners  ; 
am'd  a  cloud  of  brave  witnesses,  who  knew   that  the 
children  of  Truth  have  nothing  to  fear,  living  or  dying  ; 
whose  fidelities  have  built  up  the  temples  of  Science  and 
Civilization  amid  the  clamours  of  cowards  ;  and  they  al 
cry  shame  on  the  fears  that  would  betray  our  reason  and 
sap  our  strength;  they  cry  Onward  !  to  the  heart  that 
abandons  the  flesh-pots  of  falsehood,  even  for  a  wilder- 
ness where  leads  the  pillar  of  truth-be  it  fire,  be  it 
cloud. 


II 
GROWING    SUPERSTITIONS 


GROWING    SUPERSTITIONS. 
I. 

O  age  is  conscious  of  its  own  superstitions.  It 
would  no  doubt  have  surprised  Socrates  very 
much  if  he  could  have  foreseen  that  his  last 
words,  "  We  owe  a  cock  to  ^sculapius,"  would  one  day 
be  regarded  as  a  striking  instance  of  how  superstition 
clings  to  the  very  martyrs  of  reason.  With  what  un- 
suspecting confidence  does  Christ  speak  of  the  devil  and 
his  angels,  at  the  very  moment  when  he  is  proclaiming  a 
deity  whose  love  goes  out  to  all,  like  the  sunshine  falling 
alike  on  good  and  evil.  Such  survivals  of  popular 
delusion  in  the  greatest  minds  of  the  past,  along  with 
great  principles  of  truth,  may  well  turn  our  eyes 
searchingly  on  ourselves.  It  is  true,  that  so  far  as  the 
detection  of  hereditary  and  common  errors  are  concerned, 
we  have  great  advantages  over  even  the  foremost  men  of 
the  far  past.  We  have  developed  the  comparative  method, 
and  the  means  of  applying  it  to  our  beliefs.  It  would 
have  been  impossible  for  Socrates  or  Christ  to  trace  the 
opinions  around  them,  hunt  them  back  to  their  origin  in 
some  Indian  metaphor  or  Assyrian  fable.     Nor  did  they 


24  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

have  a  long  and  carefully-kept  record  of  many  ages,  the 
converging  experiences  of  many  races,  which  surround 
the  man  of  to-day  with  mirrors  in  which  he  can  see  his 
own  age  reflected.  They  had  but  little  chance  of  study- 
ing history, — philosophy  teaching  by  example.  We 
should  fall  far  beneath  our  opportunities  if  we  did  not 
detect  the  familiar  fallacies  around  us  to  a  larger  extent 
than  was  possible  to  the  past,  now  that  we  are  brought 
face  to  face  with  them  as  they  existed  in  the  past,  and 
can  know  the  results  of  them  as  worked  out  by  inter- 
vening generations. 

It  appears  to  be  the  one  opinion  held  in  common  by 
men  of  all  shades  of  opinion  that  the  old  order  of  Christ- 
endom is  going  to  pieces.  It  is  confessed  in  the  rage  of 
protestant  fanatics  against  the  spread  of  unbelief,  and 
equally  in  the  outcries  of  catholics  as  they  see  their 
strongest  organisations  suppressed,  and  their  Pope 
abandoned  by  nations  he  once  controlled.  Amid  the 
confusion  brought  on  by  this  state  of  things,  the  most 
hopeful  sign  is  the  degree  to  which  leaders  c>f  opinion  are 
studying  those  eras  of  history  which  correspond  to  this 
era.  Remarkable  studies  of  this  kind  have  appeared 
which  merit  the  closest  attention.  The  new  work  entitled 
"  Supernatural  Religion,"  contributes  a  large  amount  of 
knowledge  concerning  Christian  Mythology.  We  there 
may  see  how  on  the  breaking  up  of  the  old  Hebrew 
religion,  and  also  the  Greek  and  Egyptian  religions,  their 
fables  were  saved  from  the  deluge  on  the  Christian  ark  to 
populate  the  world  again  with  superstitions.  Valuable 
too  is  Dr.   Draper's  "  History  of  the    Conflict   hetweeti 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  25 

Science  and  Rtligion,"  published  in  the  excellent 
International  series.  Sir  Henry  Maine's  histories  of  our 
institutions  are  invaluable  books,  showing  by  what 
forces  and  laws  the  civilisation  around  us  was  built,  and 
enabling  us  to  detect  the  same  in  the  evolution  which 
takes  the  form  of  apparent  disintegration.  Such  works 
as  Michelet's  "  La  Sorcellerie,"  Mr.  Tylor's  "  Primitive 
Culture,"  Sir  John  Lubbock's  "  Primitive  Man,"  De 
Gubernatis'  "  Zoological  Mythology,"  Mr,  Ralston's  works 
on  the  Folklore  of  Russia — and  all  books  on  Folklore — lay 
bare  the  roots  of  a  thousand  superstitions  which,  in  their 
polished  if  not  their  rude  form,  we  encounter  every  day. 
Not  the  least  important  service  is  that  which  is  done  us 
by  the  more  scholarly  of  the  magazines.  In  the  month 
of  May  (1875)  two  articles  appeared  which  bring  to  a 
careful  reader  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  the  realities 
of  Greek  religion  than  any  University  could  teach  him 
in  a  year.  One  of  these  is  a  paper  on  "  Hesiod,"  in  the 
"  Fortnightly  Review,"  and  the  other  is  in  "  Fraser's 
Magazine,"  entitled  "  Sea  Studies." 

The  latter  is  especially  important,  notwithstanding 
some  very  questionable  inferences.  The  fine  scholar  who 
wrote  it,  Mr.  Froude,  devoted  the  main  time  of  a  long 
voyage  to  reading  the  plays  of  Euripides,  and  gives  us  a 
profound  analysis  of  the  "  Bacchae."  It  is  certain  that 
in  the  works  of  tliat  poet  are  embodied  the  most  real 
and  salient  features  of  Greek  life  and  thought  during  the 
third  and  fourth  centuries  before  Christ.  Poets  and 
philosophers  there  were  in  that  period  whose  works  bring 
us  their  individual  feeling  and  thought ;  but  the  dramatic 


26  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

writer  embodies  the  sense  of  the  people,  and  aims  to 
place  on  the  stage  before  them  that  which  shall  show  the 
very  age  and  body  of  their  own  time,  its  form  and  pres- 
sure. Euripides  was  born  about  2,350  years  ago,  and  it 
is  the  Greece  of  that  epoch  which  speaks  to  us  from  his 
page.  Our  current  impression  of  Greece,  as  it  existed  in 
those  centuries,  is  derived  from  the  splendid  literature 
which  the  revival  of  classical  learning  gave  us.  We 
know  Greece  by  its  poetry,  its  philosophy,  and  their 
gods  and  goddesses  appear  to  us  shining  in  purple  and 
gold  as  the  poets  idealised  them.  Time  and  distance 
have  destroyed  what  was  trivial.  We  see  the  noble  forms 
of  Plato  and  Socrates  in  the  Academy,  but  hear  not  the 
noise  of  the  brutal  mob  dragging  one  of  them  to  death 
and  the  other  into  slavery.  But  the  terrible  disenchant- 
ing voice  of  Euripides  comes  to  tell  us  that  in  his  time 
all  those  gods  and  goddesses  were  to  the  people  demons 
and  hags.  Apollo,  Minerva,  Venus,  Juno,  — they  were 
all  devils,  thirsting  for  blood,  demanding  human  victims, 
entrapping  human  beings  in  horrible  crimes  for  the  mere 
pleasure  of  vengeance  on  mortals  for  guilt  which  they 
(the  gods)  wished  to  monopolise. 


IL 


Bacchus  first  appears  in  Mythology  as  a  beneficent 
being,  who  taught  mankind  the  culture  of  truits,  and  the 
vine  only  among  others,  taught  them  laws,  arts,  religion. 
In  the  time  of  Euripides — the  great  intellectual  age  of 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  27 


Greece — he  appears  as  a  fearful  power,  inspired  only  by 
intoxication,  raging  through  the  world,  claiming  supreme 
worship,  and  inflicting  dire  evils  on  everybody  who  re- 
fused him  homage.  He  comes  to  Thebes,  and  when  the 
people  refuse  to  believe  on  him,  he  strikes  all  the  women 
mad,  and  transforms  them,  as  it  were,  to  beasts. 

Pentheus,  the  king  who  ventures  to  doubt  whether 
the  god  of  these  mad  women  is  a  real  god,  is  told  by  a 
priest  that  even  if  Bacchus  is  not  a  god,  it  might  be  as 
well  to  call  him  so  by  a  pious  fraud,  as  the  masses  are  all 
rushing  after  him ;  but  Pentheus  will  do  nothing  of  the 
kind.  He  sends  Bacchus  to  prison  :  of  course  the  god 
laughs  him  to  scorn.  Pentheus  is  led  through  the  streets 
amid  universal  scorn,  the  thyrsus  of  Bacchus  waving 
over  his  head.  Then  came  the  grand  finale  of  the  play. 
The  sceptical  king  is  carried  into  a  forest,  where  his 
own  mother  and  her  female  attendants,  maddened  by 
Bacchus,  take  him  for  a  beast,  tear  him  limb  from  limb, 
and  the  drama  ends  with  the  grand  tableau  of  the  mother 
coming  to  her  senses,  holding  in  her  lap  the  head  of  her 
son  slain  by  herself,  while  above  is  the  god  smiling  at 
the  triumphant  proof  he  has  given  of  his  power  and 
divinity. 

Such  was  the  divine  drama  of  blood,  which  the  popu- 
lace of  Athens  crowded  to  witness  in  their  Opera 
House.  Now,  go  to  the  Opera  House  in  London,  and 
you  shall  see  crowds  gathered  still,  to  listen  to  Mr.  Moody 
preaching  the  divine  drama  of  blood.  You  shall  find 
thousands  still  listening  to  the  story  of  a  God  of  terror 
and  vengeance,  exacting  blood  to  appease  him,  and  ready 


28  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

to  strike  dead  even  English  scoffers  who  doubt  the 
modern  manifestation  of  his  power. 

The  connection  between  the  two  is  not  imaginary ;  it 
is  strictly  historical.  The  twelve  plays  of  Euripides  dis- 
close, first,  that  the  ancient  Greek  religion  had  entirely 
passed  out  of  the  belief  of  intelligent  people.  It  was  the 
age  of  great  men—  Plato,  Socrates,  Aristophanes,  ^schylus, 
Sophocles ;  and  amid  them  the  popular  religion  lay — a 
corpse.  But  how  does  a  religion  die?  Simply  by  the 
brains  going  out  of  it.  When  cultivated  people  either 
abjure  it,  or  if,  for  the  sake  of  popularity,  they  give  it  Hp 
service,  cease  to  guide  their  action  by  it ;  when  sensible 
men  pay  no  heed  to  its  terrors  or  its  promises ;  that  is 
one  symptom  of  death.  Another  is  that  so  often  por- 
trayed by  Euripides, — madness.  Nervous  women  es- 
pecially, made  insane  by  clinging  to  the  old  dogmas, 
with  their  terrible  threats,  divine  wrath,  instant  danger, 
infernal  torment.  And,  finally,  the  most  formidable  sign 
of  death,  the  religion  falls  completely  into  the  hands  of 
the  gross,  the  ignorant,  the  base.  That  is  the  setting  in 
of  decay. 

But  it  is  one  thing  for  a  thing  to  decay,  another  for  it 
to  be  buried.  The  terrible  truth  is  that  when  a  religion 
decays  every  particle  of  it  has  a  chance  of  becoming  the 
seed  of  a  new  life,—  a  life  that  may  be  good,  but  also 
may  be  evil.  Now  let  us  turn  to  our  Greek  mirror  again, 
and  observe  what  took  place  when  the  old  religion 
perished,  because  culture  ebbed  out  of  it.  Each  bit  of  it 
became  the  centre  of  a  party  of  vulgar,  deluded  people, 
who  raised  it  into  new  power.     But  among  the  displaced 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  29 

elements  one  was  found  to  have  the  chief  element  of 
popularity  in  it — that  which  was  not  native  in  the 
religion,  but  had  come  there  from  the  Semitic  race. 
This  idea  was  that  every  god  demands  the  sacrifice  of 
that  which  is  most  dear  to  mortals,  that  which  is  without 
blemish,  most  pure  and  beautiful :  in  early  times  it  had 
been  thought  sufficient  to  appease  God  if  first  fruits  were 
offered,  but  Cain  fell  into  disgrace  because  Abel  offered 
something  more  costly  :  then  it  might  seem  as  if  the 
lamb  or  the  dove  might  answer;  but,  as  these  did  not 
seem  to  change  the  course  of  Nature,  there  was  a  sug- 
gestion that  human  victims  were  necessary.  This  idea 
was  unknown  to  the  early  Greeks  as  to  their  Aryan 
ancestors.  It  had  been  caught  from  Jewish  sources, 
Jcphtha's  daughter  reappears,  even  to  her  name,  as  the 
Greek  Iphigenia,  who  was  nearly  sacrificed  because  of 
her  youth  and  beauty,  but  saved  as  Isaac  was  in  the 
Semitic  story.  But  this  idea,  which  had  barely  tinged 
the  old  religion  of  Greece,  on  its  decay  became  the 
leading  thing.  Six  of  the  plays  of  Euripides  were  written 
to  present  to  the  people  this  new  idea  in  all  its  tragical 
varieties.  The  once  beautiful  gods  now  appear  devastating 
countries,  and  only  becoming  pacified  when  a  virgin  or 
beautiful  youth  is  sacrificed.  When  the  heroic  Macaria 
is  sacrificed  her  highest  consolation  is  that  she  is  passing 
to  eternal  sleep,  annihilation  :  to  dwell  with  such  gods  as 
demanded  her  sacrifice  offered  no  attractions.  ''  O  that 
there  may  be  nothing  !"  she  cries  ;  "  to  die  is  of  all  ills  the 
surest  remedy."  On  the  other  hand  this  horrible  idea 
which  Judea  had  sent  to  Greece  had  died  out  of  Judea 


30  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

itself.  Only  animals  had  for  ages  been  there  sacrificed. 
Christ  was  innocent  of  any  such  idea  as  remission 
through  a  human  victim.  But  when  his  name  was  carried 
to  Greece  as  founder  of  a  new  religion,  it  was  found  that 
this  idea  of  human  sacrifice  had  grown  to  enormous  pro- 
portions. And  when,  some  centuries  after  Christ,  priests 
manufactured  a  religion  and  called  it  Christianity,  the 
main  parts  of  the  machinery  were  a  vindictive  God,  a 
fearful  hell,  and  the  offering  up  of  a  pure  and  perfect 
being  as  the  only  means  of  pacifying  the  deity  and 
escaping  hell. 

The  theory  of  atonement  by  human  sacrifice  thus 
gained  a  new  lease  of  life  in  Christianity.  Fortunately, 
in  one  sense,  it  was  mystical  and  not  practical — at  least 
not  literal — in  its  application  ;  the  blood  of  Christ  was 
declared  efficacious  without  further  slaughter  of  human 
victims.  Nevertheless  the  principle  and  spirit  were  there, 
and  had  to  work  themselves  out  in  Christian  history. 
They  became  logically  embodied  in  the  superstition  that 
the  natural  powers  of  man  were  to  be  sacrificed — his 
reason,  love,  affection,  to  be  offered  up  by  vows  of 
celibacy,  renunciation  of  all  joys.  God  was  best  pleased 
when  men  and  women  became  mendicants,  hermits, 
monks  and  nuns.  People  were  taught  that  they  could 
win  a  smile  to  the  stern  countenance  of  the  deity  by 
rolling  themselves  in  thorns  or  by  tortures  of  flagellation. 
The  Catholic  Church  gradually  outgrew  that  idea,  when 
it  had  drawn  within  itself  the  learning  and  excellence  of 
Europe  ;  it  became,  on  the  other  hand,  the  chuich  of 
festivities,   of  the  arts,  and  even  of  indulgences.     Friar 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  31 

Lombez  preached  "God  is  joy.  You  destroy  the 
divine  image  in  your  soul  by  sadness."  St.  Gregory 
reckoned  "  sorrow  "  among  the  seven  capital  sins.  St. 
Francis  d'Assisi  brought  roses  to  plant  in  ])lace  of  the 
thorns  with  which  St.  Benedict  had  torn  himself  seven 
centuries  before.  But  the  old  sacrificial  idea  was  still 
strong  in  the  sombre  North  Germany,  and  England  still 
held  to  the  ascetic  view.  God  was  appeased  by  the 
sacrifice  of  the  most  perfect  virginal  being  in  the  uni- 
verse, but  no  one  could  enjoy  the  vicarious  benefit  with- 
out an  individual  sacrifice  of  carnal  reasonandall  worldly 
pleasures.  That  was  the  doctrine  of  the  Reformation, 
which  was  a  sword  of  two  edges  ;  while  one  cut  through 
sacerdotal  chains,  the  other  mutilated  the  fair  proportions 
of  human  life.  And  it  is  thus  that  the  human  sacrifices 
of  Israel,  of  Assyria,  of  Egypt,  of  Greece,  are  traceable 
through  history  till  they  appear  in  Mr.  Moody's  sermon 
on  "The  Blood." 

III. 

Looking  into  the  period  of  Greece  when  its  galaxy  ot 
great  men  stood  aloof  from  the  popular  religion,  and 
gave  it  over  to  the  Athenian  Moodys  and  Sankeys  to 
make  it  completely  into  their  own  image,  we  see  point 
for  point  the  features  of  our  own  time.  The  deities  of 
Greece  were  born  as  beautiful  idealisations  of  sun,  cloud, 
star  ;  under  theology  they  hardened  to  self-willed  omni- 
potent men  and  women  devastating  heaven  and  earth 
with  their  passions  ;  at  last  relegated  to  popular  ignorance, 


32  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

they  were  deformed  to  demons,  and  each  that  had  been 
a  poet's  metaphor  in  the  beginning,  before  it  perished, 
cost  its  holocaust  of  human  victims.  How  goes  on  the 
process  with  us  ?  When  Francis  Gallon  of  the  Royal 
Society  questions  the  chief  scientific  men  as  to  their  re- 
ligion and  finds  ninety-nine  in  one  hundred  repudiating 
orthodoxy ;  when  literature  and  art  have  become  com- 
pletely secularised,  the  age  of  Euripides  has  reappeared. 
The  brains  are  out  and  the  dogmatic  body  dies.  And  the 
worst  symptoms  of  its  decay  begin  to  appear.  The  putre- 
scent particles  find  a  congenial  soil  in  prevailing  ignorance 
and  sprout  up  with  new  vigour.  The  decay  of  superstition 
among  the  educated  is  answered  by  its  growth  among  the 
vulgar.  As  the  rites  of  Bacchus  drove  the  Thebans  mad, 
the  doctrine  of  "  The  Blood  "  is  increasing  English  in- 
sanity. This  insanity  is  not  only  visible  in  the  increase 
of  lunatics  in  hospitals — seventy  per  cent,  increase  during 
the  year  1874-5  in  Scotland  alone  through  the  revival ; 
but  it  is  visible  in  the  agonisings  of  ritualists  before  their 
altars,  in  pilgrimages  to  mediaeval  shrines,  the  canon- 
isation of  deluded  nuns,  "  flisting  girls "  in  Wales  and 
Belgium,  the  appearance  of  the  stigmata  of  Christ  on 
morbid  women.  In  a  yet  lower  class  it  appears  in  the 
growth  of  fanaticism.  We  can  hardly  realise  in  a  city  so 
civilised  as  this,  what  is  the  reign  of  dogmatic  terror  in 
some  other  regions.  Take  Lancashire,  for  example. 
Lancashire,  once  famed  for  its  witches,  has  preserved  a 
mass  of  superstitions  unsurpassed  perha|)s  by  any  other 
English  county.  The  swarming  populations  still  believe 
in  boggarts,  bargeists  and  ghosts,  and   cower  when  they 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  33 

hear  a  dog  howl  at  night.  All  the  commerce  of  Liver- 
pool and  Manchester  have  not  availed  to  dispel  these 
phantasms.  When  Mr.  Moody  was  holding  his  meetings 
in  Manchester,  he  found  a  popular  feeling  strong  enough 
to  support  his  wildest  utterances.  The  crowds  seemed  to 
gloat  on  his  horrors  to  an  extent  which  encouraged  him  in 
strange  extravagances.  He  had  heard  of  a  lady  who  had 
prevented  her  daughter  from  going  to  his  inquiry  meeting, 
and  to  a  vast  crowd  in  Free  Trade  Hall  he  depicted  that 
lady  and  her  daughter  in  hell  undergoing  punishments  so 
foul  and  frightful — depicted  this  in  such  gross  and  vulgar 
language — that  none  but  an  audience  paralysed  by  super- 
stition would  have  tolerated  it  for  a  moment.  Precisely 
such  punishments  were  depicted  on  the  Grecian  stage  as 
overtaking  all  who  refused  to  join  in  with  the  wild  rites 
of  Bacchus.  A  lady  who  had  gone  from  curiosity  with 
her  son,  wrote  a  protest  against  such  scandalous  proceed- 
ings. But  no  paper  would  print  her  letter.  The  editors 
said  that  the  popular  feeling  was  such  that  they  were 
compelled  to  refuse  all  communications  either  for  or 
against  the  revivalists.  These  men  preach  no  new 
doctrines.  They  simply  quicken  and  restore  the  two  or 
three  worst  dogmas — divine  wrath,  original  sin,  blood- 
atonement,  which  had  been  quietly  abandoned  by  the 
intelligent.  Even  in  the  time  of  King  James  the  notion 
of  a  personal  devil  had  become  so  vulgar  that  the  trans- 
lators of  our  version  had  modified  several  utterances  of 
Christ — one  in  the  Lord's  Prayer — which  sanctioned 
belief  in  Satan.  But  all  that  is  revived  ;  the  ministers  of 
religion  have  generally  aided  in  its    revival ;   and   the 

3 


34  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

popular  success  of  the  renewed  terrors  promise  to  lead  to 
a  growth  of  those  superstitions  whose  term  seemed  to 
have  been  reached. 


IV. 


In  another  direction  there  has  germinated  out  of  the 
decay  of  the  old  faith  a  formidable  growth  of  ghostly  and 
ghastly  marvels.  When  Romanism  died  in  England,  its 
remains  sprang  up  in  witchcraft :  the  decay  of  Christian 
supernaturalism  has  now  scattered  the  seeds  of  ghost- 
craft. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  of  the  sincerity  of  the  great 
mass  of  believers  in  the  alleged  spirit  manifestations. 
There  is  no  call  for  indignation  towards  them,  nor  con- 
tempt. They  are  usually  persons  of  sensitive,  or  morbid, 
nervous  organisation,  who  bear  in  their  hearts  the  wounds 
which  once  were  healed  for  such  by  priestly  consolations 
no  longer  available.  Emotional,  warm-hearted,  they  are 
at  the  same  time  morally  alienated  from  the  discredited 
creeds  around  them,  and  have  gone  forth  seeking  rest 
and  hitherto  finding  none.  The  support  which  culture, 
poetry,  and  art  bring  to  exceptional  minds  amid  the 
suspense  of  faith  which  has  followed  the  exposure  of 
sacerdotal  imposture  and  traditional  error,  is  not  avail- 
able for  them,  and  they  especially  can  not  bear  the 
doubts  and  misgivings  with  which,  since  the  disappear- 
ance of  animistic  creeds,  the  future  of  their  loved  and 
lost  is  enveloped.     They  are  to  be  respected  also  for  the 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  35 

veracity  and  simplicity  with  which  they  reject  the  theo- 
logical casuistry,  which  declares  to  be  absurd  and  im- 
possible in  the  present  age  events  precisely  similar  to 
those  on  which,  as  occurring  in  the  past,  the  entire 
fabric  of  religious  authority  rests  !  To  this  it  may  be 
added,  to  the  credit  of  spiritualists,  that,  in  the  gentle 
and  kindly  characteristics  of  their  belief,  are  reflected  not 
only  their  own  fine  qualities,  but  not  less  the  progress  of 
the  race.  As  compared  with  witchcraft  we  find  instead 
of  dark  and  deadly  diabolisms  and  malicious  spells,  the 
belief  in  good  angels;  and  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  whose 
return  was  once  believed  to  be  fraught  with  danger,  are 
now  invoked  as  guardians  of  the  living. 

The  many  virtues  and  warm  affections  which  char- 
acterise the  sincere  believers  in  spiritualism  can  not  fail 
to  increase  our  exasperation  against  those  who  try  to 
turn  such  sacred  feelings  and  qualities  into  a  means  of 
pecuniary  gain.  But  even  against  the  miserable  vagrant 
mediums  who  play  upon  the  morbid  nerves  of  sorrowing 
women,  and  profess  to  call  up  their  dead  at  so  much  per 
ghost,  it  would  seem  that  an  honest  and  thoughtful  man 
can  not  spare  too  much  of  his  indignation.  For  behind 
the  unctuous  impostor  and  his  victim  there  stands  in  the 
shadow  that  fatal  established  hypocrisy  which  has  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  tragedy,  and  still  steadily  paralyses 
every  arm  that  would  prevent  its  recurrence. 

It  is  not  the  Messrs.  "  Sludge  "  who  have  drilled  into 
the  people  their  belief  in  witches,  sorceries,  miracles ; 
it  is  not  they  who  have  carefully  taught  every  English 
child  that  it  is  infidelity  to  believe  in  the  uniformity  of 


36  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

natural  laws  ;  nor  is  it  they  who  have  enforced  by  ages 
of  argument  the  creduHty  which  meekly  accepts  the 
weakest  testimony  of  ignorant  people  against  the  ac- 
cumulated and  demonstrated  knowledge  of  the  human 
race.  This  miserable  work  has  been  done  not  by 
mediums,  but  by  theologians  sent  out  among  the  people 
by  great  universities.  It  is  they  who  put  the  Bible  into 
the  hands  of  every  man,  woman,  and  child ;  declare  it 
the  word  of  God  by  Act  of  Parliament ;  and  then,  when 
any  one  professes  to  call  up  Saul,  declare  that  what  is 
an  infallible  fact  in  Endor  is  a  palpable  imposture  in 
London  !  They  now  find  that  it  is  easier  to  prevent  any 
standard  of  reason  from  being  set  up  in  simple  minds 
than  to  give  them  the  double  tongue.  The  masses  have 
accepted  the  principle  of  unreason  so  carefully  drilled 
into  them  by  Church  and  State  ;  they  accept  all  the 
witchcraft  and  thaumaturgy  of  the  "  Word  of  God  :  " 
what  they  have  not  accepted  is  the  sacerdotal  art  of 
affecting  to  believe  what  they  really  reject.  The  spiritu- 
alists boast  that  they  number  millions  in  England  and 
America.  Why  not?  Every  vulgar  church  and  chapel 
has  prepared  the  soil  for  the  tares  they  sow.  Every  child 
is  taught  in  its  school  that  the  air  swarms  with  imps  and 
angels.  It  is  so  written  in  the  Bible,  in  the  Catechism, 
in  every  body  of  divinity.  The  common  peo])le  are  not 
sophisticated  enough  to  understand  that  all  this  is  only 
to  be  taught  and  said,  not  to  be  really  believed  and  acted 
upon.  They  take  it  to  heart.  The  child  who  has  been 
always  taught  that  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John  stand 
at  its  bed-posts,  will  not  think  it  very  wonderful  if  they 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  37 

should  occasionally  signify  their  presence  by  raps.  Why 
should  not  angels  manifest  themselves?  Why  should 
the  dead  re-appear  only  among  Jews,  and  the  far  past 
monopolise  miracles  and  the  secrets  of  the  grave  ? 

V. 

Wherever  spiritualism  goes  in  Christendom  its  basis 
in  the  Christian  religion  is  revealed  by  the  ease  with 
which  it  is  adapted  to  the  prevailing  notions  of  the 
populace.  It  is  too  much,  perhaps,  to  anticipate  that 
Christians  generally  will  acknowledge  the  legitimacy  of 
this  newest  offspring  of  their  system ;  but  honest  Pro- 
testants may  be  enabled  to  realise  the  fact  to  some  extent 
as  it  is  indicated  in  connection  with  Catholicism, 

As  I  write  a  man  named  Etienne  Geoffre,  a  gardener, 
is  imprisoned  at  Narbonne,  in  France,  for  having  "  ex- 
ercised the  art  of  healing  without  certificate,  diploma,  or 
letters  of  recommendation,  by  means  of  water  lotions, 
spiritualistic  practices,  and  the  sale  of  spiritualistic 
books."  A  large  crowd  is  said  to  have  attended  the 
trial,  made  up  of  spiritualists  and  those  who  believed 
themselves  to  have  been  healed  by  Geoffre.  The  pri- 
soner's counsel  argued  that  to  heal  in  the  manner  made 
use  of  by  his  client  was  not  trenching  on  the  field  of 
science  and  art,  but  was  a  religious  act,  similar  to  the 
cures  wrought  by  holy  water,  or  to  the  sacred  fountains 
at  Lourdes  and  La  Salette  ;  and  he  further  argued  that 
to  condemn  a  man  on  such  grounds  would  arraign  many 
holy  things  countenanced  by    the  Church,    and  expose 


38  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

to  a  penalty  all  who  believed  themselves  able  to  attain 
by  prayer  and  the  ardent  love  of  God  what  is  unattainable 
by  science.  The  argument  was  very  strong,  and  may 
remind  us  of  one  used  by  a  French  prosecutor  in  the 
days  of  witch-trials,  when,  in  answer  to  one  who  denied 
the  power  of  the  devil  on  earth,  he  exclaimed, — "Then 
all  this  ecclesiastical  machinery  is  a  pretence  :  Heaven 
itself  is  equally  a  dream  :  the  pillars  of  the  Church 
and  of  Paradise  rest  upon  the  floors  of  the  Pit."  The 
argument  which  could  burn  a  man  then  was  not  able  to 
save  a  man  the  other  day  at  Narbonne :  Etienne  Geoffre 
was  sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  five  hundred  francs,  and 
in  default  of  payment  was  sent  to  prison. 

The  means  employed  by  this  French  spiritualist  for 
healing  were  lotions  or  draughts  of  water  from  the  river 
Aude,  the  laying  on  of  hands,  and  prayer.  Every 
Saturday  the  gardener's  cottage  was  besieged  by  sick 
people,  and  it  was  stated  in  court  that  on  one  occasion 
fifty  carts  and  carriages  were  seen  collected  near  his  house. 
Etienne  pronounced  a  prayer  over  each,  causing  the 
sufferer  to  repeat  it  after  him  ;  he  was  also  careful  to  pay 
his  homage  to  the  Church  by  stating  that  the  cures  were 
wrought  by  the  late  Cure'  d'Ars. 

In  passing  sentence  on  Geoffre  the  court  was  careful 
not  to  deny  the  reality  of  the  curative  effects,  which 
indeed  might  have  led  to  popular  scepticism  as  to  the 
genuineness  of  similar  effects  produced  at  the  holy 
fountains  where  the  healing  mediums  wear  cowls.  The 
court  naively  endorses  spiritualism  as  a  fact,  but  punishes 
it  for  poaching  on  the  ecclesiastical  preserves.     It  will  be 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  39 

obvious  to  every  Protestant  that  the  agitation  at  Narbonne 
is  part  of  a  general  excitement  in  France  related  to  the 
popular  religion.  In  old  catholic  times  Scotland  was 
especially  noted  for  the  number  of  its  holy  springs  which 
the  Virgin  Mary  or  other  saints  had  rendered  curative. 
But  although  Scotland  has  now  many  spiritualistic 
"circles  "  and  "  mediums/'none  of  them  ever  send  invalids 
to  the  springs  which  Puritanism  declared  unholy.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  Ireland,  where  the  holy  wells  and  pools 
are  still  believed  in,  spiritualism  makes  but  little  headway. 
Spiritualism  finds  its  stronghold  among  the  Protestants 
of  America  and  England,  because  among  them  Science 
and  Protestantism  have  cleared  away  the  Virgin,  the 
saints,  holy  wells  and  priestly  marvels,  but,  having  done 
so  much,  have  not  yet  been  able  to  alter  the  mental 
atmosphere  in  which  they  flourished ;  they  are  conse- 
quently compelled  to  see  a  new  growth  of  saints  and 
miracles  under  new  names.  This  is  evident  from  the 
readiness  with  which  spiritualists  believe  contemporary 
catholic  miracles.  Lately,  when  Professor  Lankester 
wrote  to  the  London  Times  his  exposure  of  an  eminent 
medium,  that  journal  printed  it  side  by  side  with  a  letter 
it  had  received  from  Monsignor  Capel  declaring  his  faith 
in  a  miraculous  cure  at  Lourdes.  The  limes  commenting 
on  the  Catholic's  letter  said  :  "  The  whole  story  must  be 
regarded  with  much  the  same  feeling  as  is  a  tale  of 
wonders  achieved  by  a  medium."  Whereupon  the 
"Spiritualist"  newspaper  wrote: — "Just  so;  there  is 
indeed  an  essential  homogeneity  throughout  the  multiform 
phenomena  of  the  spiritual  realm.     All  are  evidently  due 


40  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

to  the  same  unknown  agency,  the  influence  of  which  has 
ever  been  powerful  on  mankind." 

To  the  eye  of  Comparative  Mythology  the  spiritualised 
lotion  of  the  Narbonne  gardener,  the  Lourdes  fountain, 
the  holy  water  at  the  church  door,  the  baptismal  font  of 
Protestantism,  all  represent  diminished  forms  of  the  sacred 
Ganges  and  the  diluvial  purification  of  the  earth  in  the 
traditions  of  the  Ark.  The  dove,  as  the  first  voice  of 
Spring,  symbolised  in  early  ages  renovation,  whether  sent 
out  from  the  ark  to  hover  over  a  baptised  world,  or 
descending  on  a  baptised  Christ,  or  appearing  still  to  the 
Hindu  devotee  emerging  from  the  stream  of  immortality 
which  the  god  Siva  created  at  Ambah-Naut,  where  the 
pilgrim  meets  that  deity  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  in  whose 
flight  an  omen  is  discerned.  Now,  in  warm  and  sunny 
France  and  other  Southern  climes,  the  stream  and 
bathing  part  of  these  ancient  symbols  have  been  preserved 
in  degrees  varying  with  the  climate,  from  the  dipping  in 
fountains  in  France  and  Spain  to  some  regions  of  the 
Eastern  Church,  where  no  man  or  woman  will  enter 
church  on  Sunday  unless  they  have  been  bodily  under 
water  within  the  previous  twenty-four  hours.  But  in  cold 
and  clammy  England,  by  a  process  of  natural  selection, 
the  symbolical  watery  condition  of  renewal  or  healing  has 
gradually  subsided  ;  and  as  the  cross  remains  after  the 
crucified  form  has  been  removed,  so  the  dove  remains 
after  the  renovating  water  has  ceased  to  be  of  importance 
except  to  a  few  sects.  These  facts  will  show  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  following  :  A  distinguished  female  medium 
in  London  states  that  one  night  when  she  was  in  a  trance. 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  41 

the  Holy  Ghost  came  to  her  in  the  form  of  a  dove.  When 
she  recovered  from  her  trance  she  observed  that  there  was 
an  actual  dove  in  her  room.  She  procured  a  large  cage 
for  the  bird,  and  fed  it  with  the  utmost  care.  One  day 
the  dove,  having  shed  a  feather,  the  medium  took  it,  and, 
folding  it  in  an  envelope,  gave  it  to  a  sick  friend,  who  was 
immediately  benefited  in  health  by  receiving  it.  Since 
then  she  has  carefully  treasured  every  feather  cast  by  the 
dove,  divides  up  each,  puts  the  bits  into  separate  small 
wrappers  shaped  like  a  heart,  marks  on  each  the  words 
"  Holy  Ghost,"  and  these  are  to-day  considered  by  their 
spiritualistic  owners  as  possessing  the  talismanic  power  to 
save  them  from  many  dangers.  The  female  medium  who 
got  up,  or  was  the  subject  of  this  remarkable  and  elaborated 
vision  and  scheme,  is  quite  ignorant ;  she  is  no  Catholic, 
and  probably  never  saw  an  Agnus  del  in  her  life.  Her 
learning  in  ancient  symbolism  probably  amounts  to 
having  sung  in  early  life  the  Methodist  hymn,  "  Come, 
Holy  Spirit,  Heavenly  Dove,  with  all  Thy  quickening 
powers."  Yet  in  the  superstition  just  related,  we  have 
the  very  accent  of  the  dove  legend,  which  has  persisted 
through  thousands  of  years.  The  little  drama  is  organised 
after  the  Protestant  form — i.  e.,  without  the  lavatory 
associations  which  are  preponderant  in  the  spiritualistic 
symbolism  of  the  French  mediums,  who  have  to  deal  with 
a  peasantry  confirmed  in  their  faith  in  holy  water.  But 
what  subtlety  and  elaboration  is  here  manifested  !  No 
solar  myth  found  in  our  classical  dictionaries  can  be  more 
complete. 


42  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


VI. 

It  is  obvious  that  science  can  do  nothing  directly 
against  superstitions  that  grow  within  their  natural  habitat 
of  ignorance.  Science  has  fairy  tales  of  its  own.  and 
marvels  which  shame  the  poor  miracles  of  sorcery ;  but 
science  has  got  to  proceed  as  slowly  to  its  decorated 
temples  as  ever  did  the  religion  which  began  with  a  fish- 
boat  for  its  pulpit,  and  a  handful  of  working  men  for  its 
clergy. 

"  The  present  promoters  of  spiritual  phenomena," 
says  Professor  Tyndall,  "  divide  themselves  into  two 
classes,  one  of  which  needs  no  demonstration,  while  the 
other  is  beyond  the  reach  of  proof.  The  victims  like  to 
believe,  and  they  do  not  like  to  be  undeceived.  Science 
is  perfectly  powerless  in  the  presence  of  this  frame  of 
mind.  It  is,  moreover,  a  state  perfectly  compatible  with 
extreme  intellectual  subtlety,  and  a  capacity  for  devising 
hypotheses,  which  only  require  the  hardihood  engendered 
by  strong  conviction,  or  by  callous  mendacity,  to  render 
them  impregnable.  The  logical  feebleness  of  science  is 
not  sufficiently  borne  in  mind.  It  keeps  down  the  need 
of  superstition,  not  by  logic,  but  by  slowly  rendering  the 
mental  soil  unfit  for  its  cultivation.  AVhen  science  appeals 
to  uniform  experience,  the  spiritualist  will  retort  '  how  do 
you  know  that  a  uniform  experience  will  continue  uni- 
form ?  You  tell  me  that  the  sun  has  risen  for  six 
thousand  years  :  that  is  no  proof  that  it  will  rise  to-morrow  ; 
within  the  next  twelve  hours  it  may  be  puffed  out  by  the 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  43 

Almighty.'  Taking  this  ground,  a  man  may  maintain  the 
story  of  '  Jack  and  the  Beanstalk  '  in  the  face  of  all  the 
science  in  the  world.  We  urge,  in  vain,  that  science  has 
given  us  all  the  knowledge  of  the  universe  which  we  now 
possess,  while  spiritualism  has  added  nothing  to  that 
knowledge.  The  drugged  soul  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
reason.  It  is  in  vain  that  impostors  are  exposed,  and  the 
special  demon  cast  out ;  he  has  but  slightly  to  change  his 
shape,  return  to  his  house,  and  find  it  '  empty,  swept  and 
garnished.'  "  * 

Of  one  thing,  however,  science,  its  representatives  and 
its  believers,  may  now  be  fully  aware,  namely,  that  the 
established  and  prevailing  religion  of  Europe  and  America 
is  systematically  fostering  the  mental  soil  out  of  which 
alone  this  superstition  can  grow.  Its  Christ  is  a  great 
spirit  medium,  its  credentials  are  thaumaturgic  phenomena, 
the  thing  it  most  discourages  is  necessarily  that  faith  in 
the  uniformity  of  nature  which  were  fatal  to  its  authority 
and  influence. 

Rational  men  and  women  may  also  take  note  of  the 
stupendous  fact,  that  in  the  presence  of  a  new  and  vast 
superstition,  Christianity  has  shown  itself  utterly  powerless 
to  check  or  control  it.  How  can  the  churches  impugn 
the  belief  in  witches,  ghosts,  omens,  the  power  of  ignorant 
people  and  tlieir  prayers  to  change  the  order  of  nature, 
when  their  own  Bible  is  full  of  such  things,  and  to  deny 
them  is  to  assail  their  own  foundation  ? 

And  as  it  is  with  spiritualism,  so  is  it  with   all  other 

*  "Fragments  of  Science,"  p.  321, 


44  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

superstitions,  whether  surviving  or  growing  in  our  time. 
As  the  first  Christian  missionaries  did  not  dare  to  deny 
the  existence  of  the  pagan  deities  for  fear  of  admitting  a 
sceptical  principle,  which  would  include  their  own  in- 
visible powers,  so  now  the  churches  dare  not  defend  the 
principles  even  of  common  sense  and  sanity  against  the 
most  cruel  delusions,  because  they  are,  in  the  like  case, 
with  them  ;  to  deny  them  is  to  surrender  to  the  one 
enemy  alike  of  ghost-craft  and  priest-craft — Science. 

These  delusions  (as  I  must  reiterate)  will  multiply  and 
increase  just  so  long  as  the  leading  nations  of  the  earth 
are  without  a  real  religion,  whose  first  characteristic  must 
be  to  include  its  best  wisdom,  its  noblest  character,  and 
command  the  conviction  and  enthusiasm  of  its  most 
virtuous  and  scholarly  men  and  women.  A  religion 
which  has  to  apologise  for  its  existence  to  such  is  already 
cun\bering  the  ground. 

If  the  very  light  offered  us  be  darkness,  how  great  is 
that  darkness  !  The  divorce  between  the  culture  of  a  nation 
and  its  religious  institutions  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  two-edged 
fact :  precisely  in  the  ratio  of  the  abandonment  of  those 
institutions  by  the  enlightened,  must  proceed  their 
corruption.  The  day  that  came  to  Greece  and  Rome, 
when  every  fair  god  and  goddess  became  hag  and 
demon,  has  come  fearfully  upon  us.  When  such  a  man 
as  Thomas  Carlyle,  amid  his  glowing  words  of  love  for  a 
clergyman,  pauses  to  describe  that  clergyman's  aberration 
into  orthodox  orders,  as  an  entrance  on  the  highway  of 
dead  damnable  putrescent  cant,*  we  have  come  upon  a 

*  "  Life  of  Sterling,"  chap.  XV. 


GROWING  SUPERSTITIONS.  45 

formidable  crisis.  A  religion  of  England  detestable  to 
Carlyle  is  virtually  disestablished.  Before  such  alienation 
of  a  great  heart,  a  noble  genius,  a  stainless  virtue,  from 
the  established  religion  of  a  country  could  occur  that 
religion  must  have  long  been  sinking  under  the  control 
of  its  baser  elements;  and  the  process  of  corruption 
must  increase.  The  creeds  and  observances  unrestrained 
by  the  presence  and  interest  of  the  intelligent  and  cul- 
tivated, must  be  left  more  and  more  to  ignorance  and 
vulgarity,  to  be  made  into  their  own  wretched  image  and 
likeness.  The  salt  being  no  longer  purchasable,  the 
savourless  semblance  of  it  alone  procurable,  decay  must 
go  on,  poisoning  the  air  more  and  more  with  malaria,  and 
breeding  foul  things  that  creep  and  devour. 

Small  things,  it  may  be  to-day,  to-morrow  monsters  ! 

indeed  we  are  destined  to  see  the  old  dragons  of  bar- 
barism returning — moral  chimaeras,  fanatic  Hydras, 
revival  of  Python  phantasms, — let  all  true  souls  see  to 
it  that,  so  far  as  lay  in  them,  each  shall  meet  his  slayer. 
Science,  education,  literature,  will  be  increasingly  strong 
and  brave,  as  they  have  a  free  and  earnest  constituency 
to  uphold  them  in  their  ascending",  extending  light, 
and  we  shall  fmd  our  Apollo,  whose  arrows  shall  speed 
in  splendour  through  the  air,  and  send  this  brood  of 
darkness  back,  recoiling  to  the  caves  of  Night. 


IIL 

FAITH,  FACT  AND  FAIRY  TALE. 


FAITH,  FACT,  AND   FAIRY  TALE. 


HERE  is  a  current  impression  that  fairies  are 
not  any  more  believed  in,  and  the  booksellers 
say  that  even  among  children  fairy  tales  are 

going  out  of  fashion.      I  read  lately   in   a   volume    of 

German  fairy  tales  the  following  lines  : — 

O  the  happy,  happy  season 
Ere  bright  Fancy  bent  to  Reason  ; 
When  the  spirit  of  our  stories 
Filled  the  mind  with  unseen  glories  ; 
Told  of  creatures  of  the  air, 
Spirits,  fairies,  goblins  rare. 
Guarding  man  with  tenderest  care  ; 
When  before  the  blazing  hearth. 
Listening  to  the  tale  of  mirth. 
Sons  and  daughters,  mother,  sire, 
Neighbours,  all  drew  round  the  fire, 
Lending  open  ear  and  faith 
To  what  some  learned  gossip  saith  ! 
But  the  fays  and  all  are  gone. 
Reason,  Reason  reigns  alone  ; 
Every  grace  and  charm  is  fled, 
All  by  dulness  banished  ; 
Thus  we  ponder,  slow  and  sad 
After  Truth  the  world  is  mad ; 
Ah,  believe  nve,  Error  too 
Hath  its  charms  nor  sad  nor  few. 


so  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

These  lines  convey  well  enough  a  wide-spread  feeling 
that  there  is  something  incongruous  between  reason 
and  imagination,  and  that  sentiment  is  chilled  by 
science.  I  could  not  but  note  how  odd  it  was  that  these 
lines  should  be  written  in  a  volume  of  fairy  tales 
whose  complete  recovery  from  the  past  was  due  to 
Grimm,  a  man  of  science.  In  folk-lore  and  fable  it  is 
science  and  rationalism  which  are  preserving  antiquity, 
just  as  they  are  preserving  our  ancient  monuments.  It  is 
the  dull,  unreasoning  world  which  would  take  the  dolmens 
of  Stonehenge  to  build  a  fence,  and  treat  our  fairy  tales  as 
mere  paganism,  were  it  not  for  the  scholar  and  the  man 
of  science. 

It  is  true  that  the  age  of  reason,  wherever  it  has 
gone,  deprives  the  fairy  tale  of  its  realism,  so  that  even 
children  are  hardly  deceived  by  them  any  more.  But 
we  can  hardly  deplore  this,  when  we  reflect  that  the  child 
who  used  to  believe  in  good  fairies  had  also  to  believe 
in  demons,  dragons,  and  bloodthirsty  ogres — lineal  de- 
scendents  of  the  hell-hound  Orcus.  Many  a  child  has 
been  kept  awake  at  night,  trembling  in  the  dark,  for  fear 
of  witches  riding  in  at  the  window  on  broomsticks.  On 
the  whole,  we  need  hardly  mourn  over  the  vanished 
fairies  any  more  than  over  the  vanished  gods  ;  that  is, 
the  passing  away  of  literal  belief  in  them.  All  their 
sentiment  is  preserved  as  they  appear  now  on  the  minia- 
ture stage  of  childish  fancy. 

The  line  says.  Blessings  brighten  as  they  take  their 
flight.  It  is  equally  true  that  things  not  blessings  may 
look  such  when  they  have  taken  their  flight.     Just  as 


FAITH,  FACT,  AND  FAIRY  TALE.  51 

Schiller  mourned  that  he  could  not  believe  in  the  gods 
of  Greece,  some  minds  that  have  not  yet  given  heart 
and  hand  to  the  recognised  truth  of  reason,  may  bemoan 
their  lost  beliefs.  But  what  they  remember  fondly  is 
only  a  few  rosy  features  of  their  orthodoxy, — a  Provi- 
dence to  pet  them,  and  prospect  of  a  luxurious  Paradise. 
Just  set  such  minds  genuinely  back  into  orthodoxy,  the 
whole  system  of  it,  with  sulphur  smoke  coming  up  to 
wither  all  their  Paradise,  and  a  jealous  god  angry  every 
day,  and  they  would  be  glad  to  get  out  of  it  again. 
People  do  not  always  remember  the  implications  of  what 
they  sigh  for.  They  are  like  the  man  who  sig-hed  for  his 
boyhood  again,  until  the  fairy  proceeded  to  grant  his  wish 
by  taking  away  his  wife  and  children,  whereupon  he 
decided  that  if  he  couldn't  be  a  boy  and  have  his  wife 
and  children  too  he  would  prefer  to  go  on  in  the  old  way. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  mistaken  sentiment  about 
the  early  days  of  childlike  faith,  and  their  alleged  superior 
beauty  to  the  age  of  reason.  Now,  the  truth  is,  the  age 
of  reason  represents  a  small  spot  on  the  map  of  the 
world,  and  even  at  this  day  the  belts  surrounding  it  are 
shaded  off  in  varying  degrees  until  we  find  a  very  large 
one  in  which  the  dark  ages  still  reign.  There  are  places 
and  people  enough  that  still  devoutly  believe  in  a  religion 
of  fairytales,  and  it  is  by  no  means  difficult  to  estimate 
their  advantages  and  disadvantages  as  compared  with 
those  who  hold  rational  opinions. 

On  the  9th  day  of  October,  1876,  the  chief  London 
journal  contained  two  very  remarkable  letters.  The  one 
came  from  Spain,  the  other  from  America :  by  notable 


52  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

coincidence  they  appeared  on  the  same  day.  The  letter 
from  Spain  gave  an  account  of  a  CathoUc  pilgrimage  to 
certain  sacred  places  at  Montserrat.  Among  others  the 
pilgrims  devoutly  visited  a  cavern  called  Juan  Garin. 
They  implicitly  believe  the  legend  that  once  there  dwelt 
in  that  cave  a  prayerful  monk,  named  Juan  Garin,  who, 
however,  committed  a  sin.  For  that  one  sin  he  was 
transformed  into  a  wild  beast,  and  roamed  the  forest  as 
such  until  he  was  at  last  restored  to  humanity  by  the 
voice  of  a  child  five  months  old. 

The  other  letter,  that  from  America,  related  how  a 
huge  rock  in  the  bed  of  a  sea  was  skilfully  honey- 
combed, filled  with  explosive  materials.  On  a  bright 
Sunday  morning — albeit  the  potent  Sabbatarian  fairy 
protested  against  the  desecration — the  engineer  lifted  his 
little  daughter  two  years  of  age  in  his  arms,  bade  her 
touch  a  shining  button  of  metal ;  the  dimpled  finger 
touched  the  metal  :  that  touch  exploded  52,000  pounds 
of  powder,  and  ploughed  clear  and  made  safe  the  chief 
highway  of  ships  on  the  eastern  coast  of  America. 

What  connection  is  there  between  the  splendid  fact 
from  America  and  the  weird  legend  from  Spain  ?  One  is 
a  dream  of  which  the  other  is  fulfilment.  Not  without  a 
certain  dim  significance  of  its  own  is  that  story  of  the 
monk  in  his  cave,  sunk  by  sin  to  a  beast,  restored  to 
humanity  by  a  baby's  voice.  Since  that  ancient  Hebrew 
vision  of  the  happy  era  when  the  earth  shall  be  swayed 
by  gentleness,  and  the  lion  and  the  lamb  together  be  led 
by  a  little  child,  there  has  been  a  half-conscious  dream  in 
the  hearts  of  the  lowly  of  a  day  when  the  pride  and  violence 


FAITH,  FACT,  AND  FAIRY  TALE.  53 

of  the  world  shall  be  brought  down,  and  the  child's 
innocence  be  stronger  than  the  warrior's  ferocity.  The 
wild  beast  transformed  to  humanity  by  a  child's  voice  is 
but  one  of  innumerable  fables  that  report  this  pious 
aspiration  of  the  simple  and  lowly. 

In  the  American  event  the  dream  is  realised.  Fifty- 
two  thousand  pounds  represents  a  force  which  used 
destructively  might  have  laid  New  York  in  ruins.  That 
is  the  same  power  which  to-day  is  desolating  Eastern 
provinces, — the  power  as  wielded  by  fanaticism  sitting 
in  its  cavern  of  superstition,  till  transformed  to  a  wild 
beast.  It  is  the  power  which  sleeps  to-day  in  the  arsenals 
and  magazines  of  more  civilised  Europe,  but,  unless  the 
voice  of  peace  can  master  the  beast  of  selfishness,  may 
soon  leap  forth  to  make  Europe  a  hell  of  unchained 
passions. 

But  lo  !  across  the  ocean,  science  is  seen  binding  all 
that  wild  power  to  a  baby's  finger  ;  enables  the  gentlest 
touch,  guided  by  pure  intelligence,  to  wield  the  lightning 
of  fabled  Jove,  dart  it  to  the  heart  of  a  barrier  of  rock  in 
the  sea's  depth,  there  waking  an  earthquake  and  directing 
it  to  a  beneficent  aim, — all  without  harm  to  a  human 
being !  That  is  the  way  in  which  science  enables  a  child 
to  transform  and  humanise  the  ferocities  of  nature. 

Now  these  two  stories,  which  reached  here  on  the 
same  day,  remind  us  that  past  and  present  may  be,  and 
surely  are,  morally  contemporary.  The  Spanish  belief 
about  Juan  Garin  is  a  fairy  tale  ;  it  is  devoudy  believed 
by  Catholics,  but  stories  like  it  were  believed  in  the 
far  East  some  thousands  of  years  ago.     Nay,  in  North- 


54  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

umbrian  folklore  there  is  a  legend  of  a  fair  princess 
transformed  by  witchcraft  to  a  dragon,  but  restored  by 
the  kiss  of  love  to  her  proper  shape.  It  stands  as  a 
landmark  behind  the  age  of  England,  and  indicating  the 
believers  in  such  legends  as  still  dwelling  in  the  dusk  of 
an  epoch  here  declined.  The  brave  work  in  America 
which  broke  the  Sabbath  so  splendidly  stands  out  as  a 
type  of  the  romance  and  beauty  which  are  to  take  the 
place  of  fairy  tales  in  human  belief.  It  stands  out  in  the 
tinted  dawn  of  a  coming  time,  when  children  and  aged 
people  shall  have  unlearned  the  foolish  notion  that 
reason  is  cold  and  science  dry,  and  found  that  all  the 
fairy  tales  of  the  world  are  poor  beside  the  romance  of 
the  force  that  curves  the  planet  and  the  sea-shell,  the 
story  of  the  sunbeam  that  paints  the  star  and  the  dew- 
drop;  the  divine  mystery  of  mind  which  measures  the  force, 
tracks  the  sunbeam,  and  "dismounts  the  highest  star." 

Between  those  two  landmarks— the  fairy  tale  and  the 
fact  of  science — the  faith  of  millions  is  now  hovering. 
They  whose  faith  rests  upon  supernatural  signs  and 
wonders  are  not  all  so  far  sunk  that  they  can  accept  the 
gross  superstitions  of  a  Catholic  peasantry.  On  the 
other  hand  they  who  rest  their  faith  so  far  as  they  can  on 
reason  do  not  generally  accept  the  full  results  of  science. 
But  this  we  may  remark,  that  men  give  up  the  super- 
natural just  so  fast  and  so  far  as  they  can  take  in  the 
natural.  If  you  can  once  get  a  man  to  really  know  a 
thing  in  nature,  which  means  to  know  its  laws,  he  can 
never  again  associate  anything  lawless  or  monstrous  with 
it,  nor  desire  to  do  so. 


FAITH.  FACT,  AND  FAIRY  TALE.  55 

You  may  begin  with  what  is  most  universally  known 
among  mankind  and  pass  to  the  less  and  less  known 
phenomena  of  nature,  and  precisely  in  the  ratio  of  de- 
creasing knowledge  is  increasing  superstition. 

Thus  no  man  in  England  could  be  found  willing  to 
pray  that  the  sun  might  rise  an  hour  earlier  or  set  an 
hour  later  say  for  the  getting  m  of  his  harvest.     Ihe 
devout  believer  in  prayer  may  read  with  full  faith  the 
Hebrew  fairy  tale  which  teUs  how  the  sun  did  stand  still 
and  lengthen  the  day  at  a  mortal's  petition,  and  yet  he 
or  she  would  never  dream  that  such  an  effect  could  now 
be  produced.      The  uniformities  of  the  sun's  apparent 
motion  have  been  too  patent,  too  familiar,  for  superstition 
to  connect   itself  with   that  motion.      Nor  would    any 
one  ever  turn  from  the  Christian  fairy  tales  to  pray  that 
their  water  tank  might  yield  pure  wine,  or  that  a  fish 
just  purchased  might  hold  a  coin  large  enough  to  pay 
their  tax      But  when  we  pass  to  things  of  which  the  laws 
are  not  so  familiar,  we  at  once  observe  the  tendency  of 
fancy  to  enter  and  fill  up  with  phantasms  the  margm  left 
by  knowledge.     The  shifting  clouds,  the  movements  of 
wind  and  storm  seem  so  irregular  that  a^  arbitrary  power 
IS  more  easily  associated  with  them.     And  although  the 
fairy  tale  of  Joshua  and  the  sun  is  as  authentic  as  that  of 
Elijah  praying  for  the  rain,  yet  in  all  the  world  nobody 
prays  for  a  change  in  the  day's  course,  while  some  do 
pray   for   a   change   in   the    weather.       However,    com- 
paratively few  pray  for  weather,  for  experience  has  shown 
that  meteorology  also  is  a  science.     More  pray  for  health 
or  recovery  from  sickness,  this  seeming  to  be  less  fixed 


56  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

in  conditions ;  and  yet  nobody  ever  prays  to  have  the 
dead  raised  up.  Notwithstanding  the  many  Hebrew  and 
Christian  fairy  tales  which  relate  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead,  the  necessary  laws  of  death  are  too  well  known  for 
any  one  to  try  and  secure  any  alteration. 

This  proportionate  decrease  of  belief  in   the   super- 
natural with  the  extent  of  knowledge  does  not  mean  that 
the  knowledge  has  eradicated  superstition  as  a  principle. 
Many  who  do  not  believe  that  any  power  can  change  the 
course  of  sun  or  seasons  or  weather,  yet  fully  believe  in 
miracles.      Really,  it  means  that  wherever  nature  is  ap- 
preciated,  super-nature  is  not  wanted.     What  mankind 
hate  and  dread  is  a  blind,  soulless,  purposeless  world. 
Where  they  see  no  law,  they  see  no  beauty  ;  where  there 
is  only  hard  and  heartless  matter,  human  nature  cannot 
bear  it,  and  must  needs  people  it  with  goddesses,  nymphs, 
fairies,  angels,  or  even  imps.      These  are  mere  make- 
shifts to  fill  the  awful  vacancy  which  knowledge  has  not 
yet  come  to  fill  up  with  fact  and  order.     Carlyle  exclaims, 
"  Shams   are   burnt  out,  the  realities  have  not   come." 
Whenever  the  realities  have  come,  they  are  always  satis- 
factory, and  the  fictions  easily  pass  away.      Wherever 
knowledge  goes,  it  liberates  man  from  mere  matter ;   it 
aboHshes  the   gross  object  by   showing  it  to  be  a  trans- 
parency of  beautiful   laws,  reflecting   the  glory   of   the 
universe. 

Every  Protestant  can   see   this  in   the    case  of  other 
fictions  than  his  own. 

I  have  just  been  reading  a  French  book,  by  Paul  Parfait, 
entided  "  L'arsenal  de  Devotion,"  in  which  the  author 


FAITH,  FACT,  AND  FAIRYTALE.  $1 

gives  a  detailed  account  of  all  the  miracles  wrought  in 
France  by  holy  fountains,  such  as  Lourdes  and  La  Salette, 
and  by  holy  images.  He  gives  them  as  represented  by 
the  priests  and  devotees  in  their  own  language.  This 
list  of  contemporary  miracles  fills  a  considerable  volume. 
They  are  authenticated  by  the  highest  church  authority. 
No  one  reading  these  narratives  can  fail  to  see  that  fairies 
are  believed  in  just  as  much  as  ever  by  the  French 
peasantry  ;  though  they  are  baptised  fairies.  The  queen 
of  the  fairies  is  the  Virgin  Mary.  Precisely  in  the  style 
of  the  old  fairy  tales,  she  appears  to  some  poor  little  child 
wandering  in  the  woods,  and  loads  her  with  favours.  But 
•jhe  is  not  to  be  trifled  with,  this  potent  fairy.  Thus,  in  one 
instance  a  mother  has  a  very  ill  child  ;  the  physicians 
confess  they  cannot  save  it.  The  mother  takes  her  child 
to  the  fountain  of  Lourdes,  sprinkles  on  it  a  little  of  that 
water  which  gushed  up  where  the  Virgin  appeared,  and 
lo  !  the  child  is  in  perfect  health.  But  mark  the  sequel. 
When  the  mother  took  her  child  home,  she  again  trusted 
to  the  physicians,  and  again  the  child  sank  to  the  point 
■jf  death.  So  she  had  to  hurry  off  once  more  to  the 
fountain,  and  the  child  was  again  well.  The  Virgin 
Mary  is  so  jealous  of  medical  science,  that  she  must 
have  caused  her  first  benefit  to  cease,  and  the  child  to 
sink  a  second  time,  knowing  that  the  mother  would 
again  call  in  a  doctor,  and  again  all  skill  would  fail  but 
that  of  her  fountain  ;  and  all  in  order  that  her  triumph 
over  science  might  be  doubly  marked  !  There  are 
hundreds  of  stories  like  this,  and  the  swarms  of  pilgrims 
who  visit  such  places  show  how  genuine  is  the  foith  and 


58  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

satisfaction  they  yield  to  the  Catholic  peasantry.  The 
time  was  when  Scotland  was  the  great  place  for  such 
healing  fountains,  yet  it  would  be  hard  now  to  find  any 
Scotchman  who  has  the  least  interest  in  them.  No  Pro- 
testant desires  any  such  fountains  or  fables.  Once  they 
were  cherished  as  dearly  in  this  country  as  in  France. 
The  Catholics  pity  the  poor  Protestants,  who  are  without 
such  supernatural  aid  and  comfort  when  they  are  suffer- 
ing. The  Protestant  laughs  at  it  as  all  childish  nonsense- 
Read  them  in  the  Bible — read  how  Naaman  the  leper 
was  healed  in  a  holy  stream,  or  the  miraculous  cures 
wrought  by  the  pool  of  Bethesda,  where  an  angel  ap- 
peared— and  there  it  is  divine  revelation  ;  so  at  least 
the  Protestant  says,  but  reveals  that  it  has  become  to 
him  a  fairy  tale,  so  often  as  he  ridicules  the  Bethesdas  of 
France.  And  these  things  have  passed  away,  not  merely 
because  they  were  disproved,  or  rested  on  insufficient 
evidence,  but  because,  under  increasing  knowledge,  they 
ceased  to  be  lovely  or  loveable ;  they  paled  before  the 
grandeurs  revealed  by  Kepler,  Linnaeus,  Newton.  As  the 
Scandinavian  gods  diminished  into  pixies  and  goblins,  so 
shrank  the  Christian  apparitions  that  followed  them. 
They  were  no  longer  beautiful  to  eyes  which  had  caught 
sight  of  things  higher  and  holier. 

Just  as  little  satisfaction  can  a  mind  find  in  Protestant 
fairies  and  fairy  tales  when  it  has  out-grown  belief  in 
their  reality.  They  must  pass  away  just  as  Catholic  fables 
have  passed,  and  it  will  then  be  seen  that  there  was  no 
genuine  comfort  in  them,  such  as  the  truth  of  nature  can 
give.      They  who  fancy  there  is  more  warmth,  support, 


FAITH,  FACT,  AND  FAIRY  TALE.  59 

joy  in  the  old  superstitions,  and  would  be  glad  to  believe 
them,  are  they  who  have  not  yet  given  their  faith  where 
their  intellects  have  pointed.  They  stand  between  the  old 
temple  and  the  new,  shivering  in  the  cold,  without  the 
joy  of  either.  But  Truth  is  as  jealous  as  our  fabulous  Lady 
of  Lourdes,  and  will  by  no  means  bestow  her  favours  on 
those  who  trust  themselves  still  to  the  dogmatic  doctors. 
We  must  give  a  living  and  whole  heart  to  our  faith  what- 
ever it  may  be,  if  we  would  get  from  it  a  warm  heart  in 
return.  I  do  not  say  that  all  ought  to  become  scientific 
in  a  technical  sense  ;  but  I  do  say  that  all  should  study 
to  know  more  of  nature.  Every  child  should  be  brought 
up  to  know  that  there  is  a  wonderland  all  around  it. 
Each  should  know  that  every  leaf  has  a  story  to  tell,  and 
every  insect,  and  that  a  secret  is  written  on  every  pebble. 
Every  family  should  try  to  have  a  microscope  to  imlock 
the  door  which  opens  to  rarer  treasures  than  any 
"Sesame"  of  fable.  The  heart  and  mind  cannot  be  fed  on 
dust ;  but  only  by  that  living  thought  under  whose  breath 
the  dust  floats  up  into  golden  galaxies. 

There  is  one  respect  in  which  the  believers  in  the  fairy- 
tale religion  may  be  our  models ;, childish  as  may  be  their 
beliefs,  they  are  alive.  They  will  not  rest  upon  a  mere 
historic  religion  wrapped  in  fossil  language,  they  will 
have  their  saints,  virgin,  spirits,  angels  all  around  them, 
and  as  many  miracles  as  antiquity.  Again  the  divine 
command  comes  to  our  age — "  Seek  not  the  living  among 
the  dead."  I  respect  all  that  fermentation  going  on  in 
our  own  time  and  nation,  which  indicates  a  striving  for  a 
divine  life  here  and  now,  even  though  it  may  show  itself 


6o  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

in  the  spiritualistic  or  the  ritualistic  real  presence  or  other 
credulities.  What  that  spirit  craves  is  destined  to  be 
satisfied  by  deeper  study  of  nature,  which  shall  show  every 
atom  mystical, — instinct  with  law,  life,  purpose  ;  by  pro- 
founder  insight  into  the  heart  of  man,  revealing  in  it  all 
marvels,  all  the  past  and  present  alive  and  at  work  in  it, 
there  calmly  throned  all  vanished  gods  and  angels, — there 
towering  Iran,  Sinai,  and  Olympus ;  there  Eden,  and  the 
Bethlehem  stars  that  lead  with  holy  light  to  new  Edens, 
illumining  the  universe  with  love  and  immortal  hope. 


IV. 


THE    PRAYING    MACHINE. 


THE  PRAYING  MACHINE. 


OMEtime  ago  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  receive 
two  interesting  presents.  One  was  from  an 
anonymous  benefactor,  and  consisted  of  a 
Buddhist  book,  beautifully  written  on  leaves  of  bark,  from 
a  Burmese  temple.  The  other  present  was  sent  me  by  an 
Anglo-Indian  officer,  and  consisted  of  a  Praying  Machine 
such  as  is  commonly  used  in  Thibet.  The  two  things 
came  from  widely  different  quarters,  but  they  are  strangely 
connected.  The  book  consists  of  the  first  teachings  of 
Buddha.  It  opens  with  what  is  traditionally  his  very  first 
discourse  to  some  Brahmins  who  had  begun  to  follow 
him,  but  were  afterwards  offended  and  forsook  him. 
These  Brahmins  had  clung  to  Buddha  while  at  the  outset 
of  his  religious  career  he  was  undergoing  those  terrible 
self-mortifications  by  which  he  was  brought  to  the  last 
degree  of  attenuation.  This  was  a  kind  of  sanctity  tra- 
ditional with  the  Brahmins,  and  which  they  could  under- 
stand. But  when  Buddha,  after  his  vision  of  the  angel 
with  the  guitar  of  three  strings — the  loosely-drawn  which 
gave  no  music,  the  too  tightly-drawn  which  gave  an  un- 


64  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

pleasant  sound,  the  moderately-drawn  which  yielded 
sweet  sounds— learned  the  lesson  of  moderation,  and 
began  to  eat  and  drink,  the  Brahmins  abandoned  him 
for  their  ascetic  priests.  But  Buddha,  who  had  recovered 
his  vigour  and  beauty,  sought  and  found  them,  in  the  city 
of  Benares.  Then  he  addressed  to  them  the  discourse 
with  which  the  Burmese  scripture  opens  ;  as  follows  : — 

"  O  priests  !  these  two  extremes  should  be  avoided — 
an  attachment  to  sensual  gratifications,  which  are  degrad- 
ing and  profitless  ;  and  severe  penances  which  cause  pain, 
but  are  equally  degrading  and  profitless. 

"  O  priests !  avoiding  both  these  extremes  I  have 
perceived  a  middle  path  for  the  attainment  of  mental 
vision,  true  knowledge,  subdued  passions,  and  insight 
into  the  paths  leading  to  the  supreme  good. 

"  O  priests !  this  middle  path  (consists  of)  correct 
doctrines,  right  apprehension  of  these  doctrines,  speaking 
the  truth,  purity  of  conduct,  an  innocent  calling,  persever- 
ance in  duty,  holy  meditation,  and  mental  tranquillity." 

Such  were  the  noble  tlioughts  that  choired  the  birth  of 
Buddhism  into  the  world.  Behold  in  the  praying  ma- 
chine, the  little  metallic  barrel  four  inches  long,  three  in 
diameter,  what  Buddhism  has  ended  in  for  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  millions  who  believe  in  it,  or  think  they 
do.  In  many  regions  where  Buddhism  reigns  the  masses 
hope  to  obtain  perfection  and  final  bliss  by  whirling  it 
around  at  the  end  of  a  string  as  they  walk.  When  stand- 
ing still  they  insert  a  handle  in  each  end  and  turn  it 
faster. 

It  is  packed  full  of  paper,  on  each  particle  of  which  is 


THE  PRAYING   MACHINE.  65 

written  some  sacred  charm,  mantra  or  sentence, — packed 
until  the  mass  is  quite  soHd.  Nearly  every  sentence  is 
this  :  "  Om  mani  padme  huom."  The  chief  sanctity  of 
these  words  is  that  nobody  on  earth  knows  just  what 
they  mean.  They  are  transmitted  probably  from  a 
Sanskrit  older  than  the  Sanskrit  known  to  scholars,  or, 
as  some  conjecture,  from  an  early  and  lost  form  of  Pali. 
Their  first  and  last  words,  however,  "  Om  "  and  "  Huom," 
may  possibly  be  cognate  to  that  word  "  Amen  "  which  is  so 
often  used  by  Christians  with  as  little  knowledge  of  its 
meaning. 

Now,  this  praying  barrel,  every  revolution  of  which  is 
supposed  to  influence  spirits,  angels,  genii,  or  even 
Buddha  himself  to  the  advantage  of  the  devotee,  is  in 
singular  contrast  with  the  religion  of  Buddha,  who  did  not 
even  teach  the  existence  of  a  God,  much  less  the  notion 
of  prayer.  His  whole  method  of  religion  was  inward,  silent 
meditation,  and  outward  benevolence.  That  his  religion 
should  be  overlaid  by  such  trivial  forms  and  practices  as 
now  represent  it  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  help- 
lessness of  devout  emotion  and  religious  enthusiasm  to 
prevail  against  hereditary  superstitions,  unless  assisted  by 
mental  culture  among  the  people.  Every  great  thinker 
appearing  among  ignorant  people  has  been  a  light  shining 
amid  the  darkness  that  comprehendeth  it  not — but  can 
only  blindly  adore  it  while  it  lasts,  as  if  it  were  some 
comet. 

The  praying-machine  is  itself  the  last  form  of  a  symbol 
far  older  than  Buddha,  and  represents  equally  the  decline 
into  an  unmeaning  form  of  a  once  significant  symbol. 

5 


66  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

When  Buddhism  took  to  praying-machines  it  was  because 
of  the  decay  of  both — it  was  ruin  mingUng  with  ruin. 
One  of  the  first  things  carved  on  the  ancient  monuments 
of  the  world  was  the  foot  and  wheel.  Archceologists  think 
that  it  originally  indicated  the  superior  powers  of  those 
who  rode  in  chariots — the  foot  added  to  the  wheel 
denoted  fleetness.  And  there  were  days  when  superiority 
in  fleetness  made  one  a  king  among  men.  This  secular 
symbol  gradually  became  sacred,  as  with  ignorance  things 
commonly  do,  when  their  meaning  is  gone.  The  human 
imagination  got  hold  of  it  just  as  it  has  taken  up  the 
cross  and  twined  it  with  a  thousand  exotic  meanings. 
The  wheel  became  the  circle  of  the  universe — its  motion 
became  the  symbol  of  ascending  and  descending  life — 
it  was  the  sun, — the  moon, — all  manner  of  glorious 
things.  Even  our  British  ancestors  became  possessed 
in  some  mysterious  way  of  this  symbol,  and  used  to 
roll  a  burning  wheel  down  a  hill-side  at  the  Solstice, 
as  an  image  of  the  solar  movement. 

When  Buddhism  was  preached  among  the  nations 
which  had  this  wheel-symbol,  it  followed  the  plan  of 
all  missionary  religions  ;  it  borrowed  the  sacred  emblems 
among  the  people  to  whom  it  went.  It  is  doubtful 
whetlier  Buddha  himself  knew  anything  about  the  wheel ; 
but,  in  nearly  all  the  countries  into  which  his  religion 
was  carried,  it  became  represented  at  an  early  period 
by  what  is  called  the  Wheel  of  the  Law.  The  holy  wheel 
from  being  a  sort  of  fetish  long  ago  became  spiritualised. 
First,  it  was  interpreted  to  mean  a  system  of  morals, — 
every  spoke  a  virtue,  and  the  circumference  complete 


THE  PRAYING  MACHINE.  67 

and  rounded  moral  life.  Next,  it  was  taken  up  by 
philosophy,  and  made  to  represent  a  great  circle  of 
transmigration.  And  finally  it  became  the  form  of  a 
cosmogony, — the  holy  mountain  Meru  being  the  centre 
of  the  earth,  and  around  it' wheels  within  wheels  revolving 
— such  as  the  belt  of  oceans,  the  belt  of  the  world's 
crystal  walls,  and  the  great  circles  of  stars  and  of  angels. 

The  sacred  wheel  from  being  all  this  became  an 
amulet,  inscribed  with  sacred  texts.  Gradually,  as  is 
likely,  it  was  made  hollow,  and  the  texts  written  on  paper 
were  stuffed  into  it.  In  that  way,  probably,  was  developed 
the  Uttle  praying  barrel,  or  hollow  metallic  wheel,  whose 
circular  movement  has  in  its  time  represented  the  rising 
and  setting  stars,  the  birth  and  death  of  man,  and  even 
the  pure  circle  of  graces  and  virtues. 

The  best  use  we  can  make  of  it  would  seem  to  be  to 
make  of  it  a  mirror,  and  find  whether  there  may  not  be 
in  our  own  Christendom  much  that  corresponds  to  this 
miserable  form  into  which  a  great  soul  and  movement 
have  been  dwarfed.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  finding 
praying-machines  in  Europe.  The  Rosary,  for  instance, 
is  directly  borrowed  from  the  Buddhists,  who  string  nuts 
together  to  count  their  prayers  by,  and  regard  so  many 
rounds  of  their  rosary  as  reaching  a  certain  advantage, 
just  the  same  as  so  many  revolutions  of  the  praying- 
machine.  The  simple-hearted  Jesuit  Father  Rubruquis, 
who  went  to  Thibet  just  six  centuries  ago,  wrote  home, 
"  They  (Buddhists)  have  with  them  also,  whithersoever 
they  go,  a  certain  string,  with  100  or  200  nutshells 
thereupon,  much  like  our  beads,  and  they  do  alwaj'S 


68  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

mutter  these  words,  '  Om  7nani  hactavi, — God  thou 
knowest,'  as  one  of  them  expounded  it  to  me.  And  so 
often  do  they  expect  a  reward  at  God's  hands  as  they 
pronounce  these  words  in  remembrance  of  God."  If  the 
old  man  had  gone  more  deeply  into  the  matter,  he  would 
have  found  many  more  resemblances.  For  instance,  he 
would  have  found  Buddhists  repeating  Htanies  like  this  : — 

I  adore  the  Tatagata,  the  universally  radiant  sun  ! 

I  adore  the  Tatagata,  the  moral  wisdom  ! 

I  adore  the  Tatagata,  the  chief  lamp  of  all  the  regions  of  space  ! 

and  so  on  for  137  verses.  It  might  have  recalled  to 
Rubruquis  the  many  verses  in  his  own  litany. 

Heart  of  Mary,  full  of  grace,  pray  for  us  ! 
Heart  of  Mary,  sanctuary  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  &c., 
Heart  of  Mary,  tabernacle  of  the  Incarnate  Word,  &c., 
Heart  of  Mary,  illustrious  throne  of  glory,  &c. 

What  is  it  in  the  praying-machine  which  strikes  us  as 
grossly  superstitious  and  barbarous?  Several  things. 
First  of  all,  there  are  in  it  those  vain  repetitions  which 
Jesus  rebuked  in  the  formulas  of  his  time.  These 
deteriorated  Buddhists  think  they  shall  be  heard  for  their 
much  rolling  of  barrels.  Does  that  idle  notion  survive  in 
Christendom?  What  shall  be  said  of  the  oft-recurring 
"  Good  Lord  deliver  us  !  "  and  "  We  beseech  thee  to 
hear  us.  Good  Lord,"  of  the  prayer-book  and  its  feeble 
imitations  ?     Then  we  have  the  vain  repetitions — 

Lord  have  mercy  upon  us  ! 

Christ  have  mercy  upon  us  ! 

Lord  have  mercy  upon  us  ! 

Christ  have  mercy  upon  us  ! 

Son  of  God,  we  beseech  thee  to  hear  us  ! 

l^mb  of  God,  we  beseech  thee  to  hear  us! 


THE  PR  A  YIiVG  MACHINE.  69 


And  there  are  other  instances  of  the  same  sort  which 
compel  every  clergyman  to  be  a  praying-machine.  We  all 
know  what  is  the  result  of  such  repetitions.  The  formula 
uttered  in  such  routine  loses  reality— degenerates  into  an 
incantation  among  the  ignorant,  into  cant  among  the 
educated. 

But  there  are  many  Christians  around  us  who  have 
rejected  these  formulas  and  repetitions  of  the  Church, 
They  are  not  indeed  entirely  guiltless  of  this  great  vice  of 
the  Roman  and  Anglican  Churches,  however,  for  they 
repeat   certain   incantations  in  their  prayers, — such   as 
"Amen,"  and  "through  Jesus  Christ  our   Lord,"   and 
other  stock  phrases  which  they  tell  over  and  over  again 
like   the   beads    of  a  rosary.      But  there   is    a   coarse 
superstition  embodied  in  the  praying-machine  which  all 
sects  share  alike ;  one  which  is  inherent  in  the  very  nature 
of  prayer.     It  is  the  belief  implied  that  the  benefits  of  this 
universe  are  to  be  secured  by  the  perfunctory  lip-service 
or  barrel-service  of  human  beings.     It  is  impossible  to 
think    of  one  of  those    orientals   turning    his  praying 
machine  otherwise  than  as  some  poor  fellow  in  the  street 
grinding  over  and  over  again  on  his  barrel-organ  a  well- 
known  stock  of  dismal  tunes  in  hope  of  an  occasional 
penny  from  the  heavenly  windows.     And  the  man  of  the 
machine  may  describe  in  the  same  way  the  tedious  routine 
of  Christian  prayers,  beseeching  God  to  throw  out  a  mercy 
or  two  from  His  abundance.     Nay,  he  might  well  claim 
that  his  pbn  of  doing  this  sort  of  thing  by  machinery  is 
the  best  of  the  two,  since  it  leaves  the  man  free  to  sit  in 
silent  meditation,  which  is  of  some  value,  while  his  wheel 


70  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

is  turning.  And  if  the  interpretation  of  the  mysterious 
phrase  so  multipHed  in  the  barrel  which  was  given  to  the 
Jesuit  father,  "  God  thou  knowest,"  be  the  popular  one — 
it  is  not  the  right  one — why  then  our  popular  appeals  to 
God  for  this  and  that  thing  are  by  no  means  so  elevated 
as  the  submissive  sentence  of  the  Buddhist. 

It  is  not  denied  that  the  system  of  prayer  was  once  real. 
The  Buddhist  wheel  was  once  a  great  reality.  Buddha 
himself  was  once  a  great  reality.  But  as  in  the  progress 
of  the  world  the  oriental  symbol  and  the  religion  have 
lost  spontaneity,  and  at  last  meaning,  and  now  remain 
only  in  fossils — interesting  for  study,  but  useless  for  their 
original  purpose — so  it  is  certain  that  the  discoveries  of 
universal  law  have  reduced  prayer  among  us  to  an 
anachronism.  It  makes  no  difference  whatever  whether 
the  prayer  be  for  a  moral,  or  an  intellectual,  or  a  physical 
benefit.  If  it  is  absurd  for  a  man  to  set  himself  to  acquire 
a  fortune  by  praying  for  it,  it  is  equally  absurd  for  students 
to  try  and  pass  their  examination  by  prayer  instead  of 
study — an  absurdity  which  protestants  can  see  when  for 
such  help  priests  invite  students  to  visit  the  fountain  of 
Lourdes ;  but  neither  is  more  absurd  than  to  pray  for 
morality,  for  character,  for  virtue  or  religion,  all  of  which 
are  equally  dependent  on  the  invariable  laws  of  cause  and 
effect. 

There  were  high  moments  in  the  lives  of  the  apostles 
when  they  rose  above  such  current  superstitions,  and 
warned  men  that  spiritual  were  no  less  certain  and  in- 
variable than  physical  laws.  "  Be  not  deceived,"  said 
one,  "that  which  a  man  soweth  he  shall  reap."     "Be 


THE  PRAYING  MACHINE.  71 

not  deceived,"  cried  another,  "  he  that  doeth  righteous- 
ness is  righteous."  They  who  said  these  things  were  not 
Christians.  The  term  Christianity — which  means  an 
attempt  to  substitute  the  virtue  of  Christ  for  our  virtue, 
and  the  task  of  the  year  one  for  the  work  of  1877 — that 
sectarian  term  by  which  a  living  heart  was  prisoned  in  a 
machine,  creed-machine,  praying-machine — was  not  yet 
invented.  But  that  solemn  warning,  "  Be  not  deceived  !  " 
was  speedily  lost.  Christianity  came,  and  still  is  with  us, 
proclaiming,  "  That  which  a  man  soweth  he  shall  escape 
reaping  by  prayer ; "  "  he  that  doeth  righteousness  is  not 
righteous,  unless  he  prays  ;  he  will  go  to  hell  no  matter 
what  good  he  does,  unless  he  prays."  This  idea  that  the 
great  moral  laws  depend  on  the  breath  of  our  lips  is  a 
sad  declension  from  the  heights  of  ancient  faith  and 
knowledge.  There  is  a  notion  abroad  that  the  percep- 
tion of  the  essential  superstitiousness  of  prayer  is  a 
modem  opinon.  Some  people  appear  to  think  that  the 
movement  against  prayer  originated  with  our  English 
men  of  science.  But  it  is  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that 
every  great  religious  soul  in  the  far  past  contributed 
something  to  that  profounder  reverence,  that  deeper 
sense  of  the  eternal  laws,  which  have  shown  prayer  to  be 
a  presumptuous,  albeit  unconscious  attempt  to  cajole 
the  universe.  The  ancient  testimonies  of  prophets  and 
sages  against  the  whole  theory  of  prayer,  and  even  its 
form,  are  innumerable — nowhere  more  so  than  as  re- 
corded in  the  Bible.  "The  Lord  said  unto  Moses, 
wherefore  criest  thou  unto  Me  ?  Speak  unto  the  children 
of  Israel  that  they  go  forward."— (Ex.   14.)     In  all  the 


72  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

wanderings  of  Israel  in  Egypt  this  seems  to  have  been 
the  only' time  Moses  prayed,  and  then  his  strong  con- 
science rebuked  him  for  asking  a  god  to  do  his  work. 
Among  the  Ten  Commandments  he  brought  down  from 
Sinai  not  one  commanded  men  to  pray, — though  there  is 
one  about  taking  the  name  of  Jehovah  in  vain,  which 
millions  of  prayers  are  violating  this  day.  It  is  true  that 
Moses  is  said  to  have  instituted  sacrifices,  and  these  are 
of  the  nature  of  prayers  ;  it  is  pretty  certain  that  the 
sacrifices  which  his  name  labelled  are  the  invention  of  a 
late  priesthood,  and  that  Moses  never  commanded  people 
wandering  in  a  wilderness  to  offer  their  god  flocks  and 
herds,  doves  and  lambs,  which  they  did  not  possess  ;  but, 
even  were  it  so,  it  would  only  show  that  he  had  not  out- 
grown at  all  points  the  superstitions  in  which  he  was 
trained.  But  what  do  we  find  among  the  great  prophets 
who  followed  him  ?  Denunciations  of  sacrifice,  burnt- 
offerings,  and  the  prayers  uttered  with  them.  "  Bring  no 
more  vain  oblations," — such  was  the  still  small  voice  as 
Isaiah  heard  it ;  "  incense  is  an  abomination  to  me  ; 
even  so  are  your  sabbaths ;  when  you  stretch  forth  your 
hands  I  see  not ;  when  ye  pray  I  hear  not.  Learn  to  do 
well.  Seek  justice.  Redress  wrongs.  Help  the  poor." 
Such  utterances  are  to  be  found  in  the  Bible  by  hundreds. 
Who  can  ever  read  without  feeling  its  rebuke  to  the 
ceremonies  of  Christendom  that  sublime  summing  up  of 
true  worship  by  the  prophet  Micah, — "  What  doth  the 
Lord  thy  God  require  of  thee  but  to  deal  justly,  love 
mercy,  and  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ?  "  Parallel  to 
those  prophetic  rebukes  of  all  formularies  was  the  sweep- 


THE  PRAYING  MACHINE.  73 


ing  rebuke  by  Christ  of  all  public  prayer  whatever- 
prayers  in  street  or  synagogue.     Jesus  may  not  indeed 
have  seen  that  prayer  is  irrational  in  itself,  though  it  is 
certain  he  never  uttered  the  prayers  put  by  reporters  in 
his  mouth  :    he  died  young,    and  did  not  outgrow  all 
the  superstitions  around  him  ;  but  one  thing  is  clear,  he 
would  respect  no  prayer  uttered  outside  of  the  closet, 
and  that  is  enough  to  rebuke  all  our  litanies,  kneelings, 
grace-mutterings  at  table,  and  every  other  performance 
of    the    European   praying    machine.       If    a    doubtful 
chapter   be   founded   on   true  tradition,    Jesus   seemed 
indeed  to  be  near  to  the  higher  truth  when  he  told  his 
friends  he  would  not  pray  for  them,  since  that  might  imply 
that   God  required  some  suggestion  or  intercession  in 
order  to  love   them.     Paul   seemed   to  feel  the  incon- 
sistency of  prayer  when  he  said,  "  We  know  not  how  to 
pray  for  anything  as  we  ought,"  and  that  this  must  be 
left  to  the  deep  spirit  within,  whose  pleadings  cannot,  he 
says,  be  uttered  in  words. 

In  the  great  regenerating  epochs  of  other  nations,  in 
which  their  religions  were  born,  we  find  a  similar  repug- 
nance to  this  cheap  sentimental  way  of  supplicating 
God,  when  great  work  is  to  done.  We  do  not  find  that 
Buddha  or  Confucius  ever  prayed,  and  Zoroaster  sang 
happy  hymns  and  invocations,  but  offered  no  petitions. 
Mahomet's  terrible  Allah  did  indeed  command  prayer, 
but  even  Mahomet  desired  his  followers  to  attend  prayer 
chiefly  during  the  night,  so  that  the  day  might  be  devoted 
to  work.  All  such  testimonies  against  praying  are  mixed  : 
these  men  lived  among  uncivilised  people,  amid  myriad 


74  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

superstitions ;  and  we  must  judge  tiiem  by  the  tendency 
of  their  teachings.  These  teachings  are  sometimes 
marvellously  clear.  The  testimony  of  Isaiah  against 
prayer  is  clear.  The  rebuke  of  Confucius  to  those  who 
try  to  do  service  to  gods  is  plain.  The  great  Persian 
poet  KMi  had  learned  the  lesson  more  clearly  than  his 
prophet  when  he  wrote  eight  centuries  ago,  "  Only  the 
low-minded  can  pray  to  God  for  benefits  on  earth." 

Some  theoretical  defenders  of  prayer  are  indeed  in- 
clined to  accept  the  view  of  Kali,  and  confine  petitions 
to  such  as  implore  spiritual  benefits.     But  here  Cicero 
meets  them  with  his  rational  principle  that  a  man  may 
rather  ask  the  gods  for  fortune  or  a  good  harvest,  which 
his  unaided  powers  can  not  always  command,  but  that  it 
is  base  to  pray  for  virtue,  whose  value  consists  essentially 
in  the  self-denial  and  labours  of  which  it  is  the  result. 
We  can  not  doubt  that  Plato  represented  the  best  thought 
of  Greece  when  he  laid  down  in  his  Laws  that  they  who 
believed  the  gods  could  be  propitiated  by  sacrifices  and 
prayers,  or  turned  from    their   purpose   by  bribes  and 
praises ;    that  they  who  taught  men  (I  use  Plato's  ov/n 
phrase)  "to  fawn  upon  the  gods  as  dogs  fawn  on  their 
keepers  to  get  some  favour  ; "  should  be  kept  in  confine- 
ment for  five  years,  and  set  free  then  on  proof  of  recovered 
sanity.     Plato  held  that  to  spread  the  delusion  that  the 
results  of  human  conduct  could  be  escaped  by  flattering 
deities  was  a  danger  to  the  state,  and  so  far  he  was  per- 
fectly right.     Every  time  this  nation  executes  a  criminal, 
whom  priests  say  God  has  fully  pardoned — and  sends 
him  from   a   life  of  villainy  to  an  eternity  of  bliss,  all 


THE  PR  A  YING  MA  CHINE.  75 


obtained  by  his  and  his  priest's  prayers,—  a  license  to 
every  scoundrel  is  proclaimed,  and  an  indulgence  to  crime 
more  demoralising  than  was  ever  issued  by  any  Pope. 
While  it  is  notorious  that  crime  is  aided  by  the  uncer- 
tainties of  human  law,  we  support  thousands  of  pulpits 
to  proclaim  that  the  laws  and  penalties  of  the  universe 
and  of  God  are  all  uncertain,— or  still  worse,  that  the 
criminal  may  appeal  successfully  to  some  heavenly  Home 
Office  against  the  sentence  of  his  country.  The  truth  is 
any  belief  contrary  to  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  is 
demoralising^  to  the  individual  or  the  nation,  for  that 
which  can  be  set  aside  by  priest  or  prayer  is  no  law  at  all. 
The  very  meaning  of  natural  law  is  that  which  is  invari- 
able and  inflexible.  Prayer  rests  upon  the  wild  fancy 
that  the  rule  of  the  universe  is  variable,  flexible — in  fact, 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  Law  for  the  moral  nature. 
If  that  be  true,  the  revolution  of  the  solar  system  may 
naturally  depend  on  the  revolution  of  a  Burmese  praying 
barrel ;  and  the  moral  destinies  of  Humanity  depend  on 
the  screams  of  revivalists.  But  let  no  man  fancy  he  is 
any  wiser  in  praying  for  God's  love  than  he  would  be  in 
praying  for  the  sun  to  shine  all  night ;  nor  let  any  man 
fancy  that  his  round  of  Christian  prayers  is  a  whit  better 
than  the  revolving  litanies  of  Thibet. 

Remembering  the  greatness  of  the  great,  then  looking 
upon  the  poor  dead  signs  that  conventionalise  and  stand 
for  them, — the  wheel,  the  Kaaba  stone,  the  cross, — we 
may  recall  those  pathetic  legends  which  of  old  went 
round  the  world,  in  which  every  people  held  that  its 
leaders    never    died,    but  are    only    sleeping   in    some 


76  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

enchanted  grot  or  isle  whence  they  will  some  day  return 
to  fulfil  the  dreams  of  their  country.  In  the  creed  of 
Folklore,  Jami,  St.  John,  Barbarossa,  Charlemagne, 
Arthur,  Kalewala,  Tell,  Boabdil,  Sebastian,  and  even  the 
Hiawathas  and  Gloscaps  of  American  tribes,  did  not  taste 
of  death  :  they  will  return  when  some  hour  of  opportunity 
shall  strike,  or  when  some  fortunate  mortal  shall  unsheathe 
the  sword  they  wielded,  and  blow  the  old  bugle  that 
called  their  comrades  from  afar.  Corresponding  to  all 
these  are  the  teachers  and  prophets  on  whom  the  hag 
Superstition  has  cast  her  spell.  Their  spirit  prisoned  in 
the  letter,  their  thought  and  heart-pulses  arrested,  they 
stand  as  the  idols  of  innumerable  caves,  biding  the  time 
when  a  courage  and  inspiration  like  their  own  shall  lead 
them  forth  into  the  full  glory  of  their  aim  and  ideal. 
When  universal  Justice  holds  the  sword  of  power  on 
earth,  then  will  the  sleeping  heroes  stir  and  start  up  1 
When  pure  Reason  reigns  in  the  cult  and  culture  of 
civilized  nations  then  will  the  spell-bound  sages  and 
prophets  emerge  !  At  the  advent  of  the  last  incarnation, — 
pure  reason  organised  in  humanity, — they  shall  all  come 
forth  to  offer  their  royal  gifts,  and  shine  anew  in  the 
world's  transfiguration. 


V, 

THE    PRE-DARWINITE    AND    POST- 
DARWhNITE  WORLD. 


THE   PRE-DARWINITE   AND    POST- 
DARWINITE    WORLD. 


N  estimating  the  general  bearings  of  a  purely 
scientific  statement  it  is  first  of  all  necessary 
to  know  just  what  that  statement  is ;  and, 
secondly,  it  is  necessary  to  translate  it  into  the  largest 
expression  of  which  it  admits. 

The  doctrine  of  evolution,  as  interpreted  and  applied 
by  the  man  whose  name  is  now  preeminently  associated 
with  it,  is  the  consummate  result  to  which  the  great  high- 
ways of  discovery  had  long  tended  before  they  converged. 
Over  one  hundred  years  ago  the  ancient  speculations  were 
recalled  by  Buffon,  who  said,  ''There  is  but  one 
animal."  This  grew  through  Buffon's  pupil  Lamarck 
to  the  theory  of  an  evolution  by  fits  and  starts,  some- 
thing like  that  popularised  in  England  in  the  book 
entitled  "  The  Vestiges  of  Creation."  It  gained  a  more 
scientific  expression  with  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire,  who 
affirmed  the  unity  of  all  parts  of  the  animal  body, 
and  indicated  that  "  balance  of  organs  "  by  which  each 
form  was  shown  to  be  only  another  transformation  of  the 
common  type.  That  all  bones  are  vertebrae  was  discovered 


8o  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

by  Oken,  who  also  demonstrated,  in  1805,  that  all  animals 
are  built  up  out  of  vesicles  or  cells.  Bichat  was  engaged 
in  the  work  of  showing  the  bearing  of  these  facts  upon 
the  structure  of  man  when  unhappily  his  life  terminated 
in  177 1.  Goethe  extended  the  same  principle  to  the  mor- 
phology of  plants.  In  England  Dr.  Erasmus  Darwin  struck 
the  theme  somewhat  poetically,  which  his  famous  grandson 
has  made  into  the  great  scientific  generalisation  of  our 
time.  Thus  the  Darwinian  theory  of  evolution  had  great 
forerunners.  It  is  no  empyrical  speculation,  no  isolated 
or  eccentric  fancy.  It  is  the  apex  of  a  great  pyramid  of 
facts  and  researches  resting  solidly  and  squarely  upon  the 
graduated  formations  of  knowledge  in  all  time,  and  built 
up  by  the  certain  method  of  science. 

Nor,  in  saying  this,  do  I  detract  from  the  just  fame  of 
the  man  who  has  summed  up  and  named  the  great 
series  of  preceding  discoveries.  The  finest  genius  can  do 
no  greater  work  for  us  than  that  of  filtrating,  combining, 
and  organising  the  mass  of  facts,  and  of  applying  to  the 
full  extent  methods  which  had  hitherto  been  doing  but 
slight  and  partial  service.  That  the  telegraph  was  used 
in  a  German  lecture-room  long  before  it  was  known  to 
society,  does  not  detract  from  the  grandeur  of  the  achieve- 
ment which  has  made  it  flash  the  thought  of  man  through 
sea  and  mountain  round  the  world.  The  great  man  does 
not  create  the  laws  of  nature :  he  discovers  them,  he 
studies  them,  he  applies  them,  he  obeys  them.  Nor  is 
he  less  a  discoverer  who  discerns  where  a  principle  may 
be  truly  ajiplied,  and  so  recovers  from  chaos  a  realm  of 
knowledge,  than  he  who  originally  discovered  the  prin- 


PRE-DAR  WINITE  AND  POST-DA R  WINITE  WORLD.    8i 

ciple.  Darwin  inherited  the  principle  of  evolution,  but 
he  discovered  that  form  of  it  through  which  alone  it  could 
simplify,  revise,  and  harmonise  every  branch  of  human 
knowledge.  He  merits,  therefore,  the  acknowledgment  I 
once  heard  expressed  by  a  distinguished  American,  that 
he  had  restored  to  England  the  intellectual  sceptre  of 
Europe.  That  sceptre  had  passed  to  the  hand  of  Germany,' 
but  now  every  civilised  nation  looks  again  to  England,  as 
it  looked  in  the  days  of  Bacon  and  in  those  of  Newton. 

II. 

What,  then,  is  the  Darwinian  theory?  It  is  that  all 
the  organic  forms  around  us,  from  lowest  to  highest,  have 
been  evolved  the  one  from  the  other  by  means  of  the 
principle  of  natural  selection.  Natural  selection  is  the 
obvious  law  that  every  power  or  trait  which  better  adapts 
an  animal  to  live  amid  its  surroundings  enables  that 
animal  to  survive  another  which  has  not  the  same  power 
or  trait.  The  fit  outlive  the  unfit.  And  because  they 
outlive  their  inferiors  they  will  propagate  their  species 
more  freely.  Their  offspring  will  inherit  their  advantages ; 
by  the  laws  of  heredity  will  still  further  improve  upon 
them  ;  and  thus  there  will  be  a  cumulative  storing  up  of 
such  advantages  established.  Each  form  less  furnished 
with  resources  to  maintain  itself  is  crowded  out  before 
the  increase  of  forms  which  are  better  supplied  wath 
hereditary  abilities.  A  sufficient  accumulation  of  slight 
advantages  amount  in  the  end  to  a  new  form  or  species. 
An  accumulation  of  specific  advantages  will  be  summed 
up  in  a  new  genus. 

6 


82  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

And  thus,  as  Emerson  has  said — 

'*  Striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  fonn." 

Now,  to  the  merely  scientific  mind  evolution  is  simply 
a  scientific  generalisation.     In  its  light  he  beholds  the 
sprouting  leaf  hardening  to  a  stem,  unpacking  itself  to  a 
blossom,  swelling  again  to  the  pulpy  leaf,  called  fruit. 
He  inspects  the  crustacean  egg ;  sees  the  trilobite  in  the 
embryo  stretching  into  a  tiny  lobster,  shortening  into  a 
crab  ;  and  says,  trilobite,  lobster  and  crab  pass  from  one 
to  the  other  in  this  little  egg-world,   as  the  new  theory 
shows  they  did  in  the  big  world.     He  will  be  interested 
to  find  out  the  intervening  steps  of  improvement  between 
one  form  and  another,   and  will  fix  upon  this  or  that 
animal   as  the  one  from  which  a  consummate  species 
budded.     But,    as  I    have  stated,    a  truth   in  any  one 
department  of  knowledge  is  capable  of  being  translated 
into  every  other.     We  are  already  familiar  with  a  popular 
translation   of  the   Darwin  theory  in  the  phrase  which 
explains  it  as  meaning  that  men  are  descended  from 
monkeys.      And  by  this  common   interpretation    many 
conclude   that  it   implies  a  degradation  of  the  human 
species.     But  that  phrase  does  not  convey  the  truth  of 
the  theory  any  more  than  if  a  rough  pediment  in  the 
museum  were  declared  to  be  the  splendid  temple  of  Diana 
of  Ephesus.     For  behind  each  one  of  the  forms  evolving 
higher,  there  stretch  the  endless  lines  and  processions  of 
the  forms  which  combined  to  produce  it.     The  ape  may 
appear  ugly  seen  as  he  is  among  us,  detached  from  his 
environment,  when  contrasted  with  man  ;  but  he  is  royal 


PRE-DARWINITE AND POST-DAR WINITE  WORLD.    83 


when  contrasted  with  a  worm  in  the  mud.  But  neither 
worm  nor  ape  can  be  truly  seen  when  detached  from  the 
cosmical  order  and  beauty.  It  matters  Httle  what  rude 
form  sheathed  the  first  glory  of  a  human  brain.  It  does 
not  rob  the  opal  of  its  beauty  that  its  matrix  was  common 
flint,  nor  does  it  dim  the  diamond's  lustre  that  it  crystal- 
lised out  of  charcoal.  The  ape  may  be  the  jest  of  the 
ignorant,  but  the  thinker  will  see  behind  him  the  myriad 
beautiful  forms  which  made  him  possible.  What  wondrous 
forests  of  fern  and  vine  grew  in  voiceless  ages,  clothing 
the  hard  primceval  rock,  what  flowers  rich  and  rare 
broidered  the  raiment  of  the  earth  !  What  bright  insects 
flashed  through  their  green  bowers,  what  gorgeous  birds 
lit  up  the  deep  solitudes  with  torch-hke  plumage ! 
Through  a  thousand  ages  the  shining  swimmers  darted 
through  pool  or  air  ;  for  unnumbered  generations  star- 
gemmed  creatures,  hthe  and  beautiful,  sprang  through 
jungle  and  forest :  they  browse  peacefully  on  hill  and 
meadow  ;  they  slake  their  thirst  at  crystal  streams  ;  they 
pursue  their  savage  loves  in  wood  and  vale  ;  with  mighty 
roar,  with  sweetest  melody,  they  chant  the  music  by 
which  the  world  marches  onward  and  upward,— onward 
and  upward  for  ever !  Millions  pass  away — millions 
advance  :  from  every  realm  of  nature  they  come  to  add 
their  fibre  of  strength  or  tint  of  beauty  to  the  rising 
form  ;  beneath  every  touch,  with  every  tribute  it  ascends, 
—till  at  last,  lodged  for  a  moment  in  some  rugged  human- 
like form  for  combination,  the  selected  concentred  powers 
expand  into  man— the  sum  of  every  creature's  best ! 
The  right  translation   of  this  theory  for  us  is,   then 


84  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

that  it  shows  man  to  be  the  offspring,  not  of  an  ape,  but 
of  the  animated  universe  ;  the  heir  of  its  richest  bounties  ; 
the  consummate  work  of  a  matchless  Artist,  a  figure  of 
which  all  preceding  forms  were  but  sketches  and  studies. 
Admitting — though  it  is  an  extreme  and  questionable 
concession — that  the  theory  has  not  yet  fortified  itself 
completely  by  demonstrations  in  detail  of  the  connecting 
links  between  species,  yet  it  has  certainly  shown  such  an 
immense  balance  of  probabilities  in  its  favour  as  to  com- 
mand the  adhesion  of  the  scientific  world  to  a  greater 
extent  than  the  Newtonian  theory  of  gravitation  did 
within  the  same  time  after  its  discovery.  It  may  be 
affirmed  that  there  is  now  not  a  single  great  man  of 
science  in  the  world  who  does  not  maintain  that  in  one 
way  or  another  species  were  continuously  evolved. 

III. 

But  what  effect  has  this  theory  on  religion  or  moral 
philosophy  ?  We  all  know  that  it  has  awakened  earnest 
controversies.  There  are  several  ways  in  which  it  has 
been  regarded.  One  class  of  religious  teachers,  seeing 
that  the  verdict  of  the  scientific  world  in  its  favour  is 
beyond  appeal,  have  been  assuring  us  that  it  can  have  no 
effect  upon  religion  whatever.  Dean  Stanley,  too  liberal  and 
scholarly  not  to  recognise  the  facts,  recently  admonished 
an  audience  that  it  mattered  nothing  at  all  to  them  whether 
it  should  turn  out  that  man  is  descended  from  the  animal 
world,  or  lower  still,  as  the  Bible  said,  from  the  inanimate 
dust  of  the  earth,   for  right  would   still   be    right,   and 


PRE-DARWINITE AND POST-DARWINITE  WORLD.  85 

wrong,  wrong;  and  we  should  still  feci  that  we  are 
individual  souls.  What  he  said  was  true,  but  the  tone 
of  his  remark  was  that  this  is  a  question  quite  aside  from 
the  great  religious  problems  of  our  time. 

They  who  indulge  this   hope  will  very  soon  find   it 
delusive.      It   has   never   been    the   case    that   a   great 
scientific  generalisation  has  failed  to  be  reflected  in  the 
religious    and    moral    convictions    of    mankind.      The 
instinctive    horror  which    priesthoods   have  of    science 
has  been  developed  by  a  long  experience  of  the  certainty 
with  which  theological  changes  have  followed  scientific 
discoveries.      If  any  one  will  study  the  conditions  of 
religious  thought   in  this  country  before  and  after  the 
discoveries  of  Newton,  he  will   see  that   by  those  dis- 
coveries the  w'hole  controversy  was  shifted,  theology  was 
revolutionised  ;  old  questions  died,  new  problems  arose  ; 
nay,  theology  itself  de.clined  in  England  from  that  day. 
When  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  sitting  in  the  historic 
Abbey  of  Westminster  and  listening  to  such  rationalism 
from  its  Dean  as  would  have  sent  a  preacher  in  old  times 
to  the  stake,  I  have  reflected  that  beneath  that  floor  lies 
the  dust  of  Isaac  Newton.      And  when   England  had 
advanced  sufficiently  to  bury  in   the   shrine  of  her  best 
and  greatest  that  scientific  revolutioniser  of  thought,  him- 
self a  Unitarian  (Sir  Charles  Lyell),  there  was  planted 
another  of  the  seeds  that  have  flowered  into  the  rational- 
ism which   inspires   her   most  venerable   and   powerful 
pulpit     The  Dean  himself  is  the  best  answer  to  his  own 
suggestion,   that   religion   can   stand   still  while  science 
moves.     It  cannot  stand  still.     And  the  reason  is  plain  : 


86  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

that  which  represents  religion  in  Europe  is  a  set  of  dog- 
mas based  upon  the  Bible,  and  the  Bible  is  not  only  a 
religious  but  a  scientific  book ;  it  contains  a  system  of 
theories  as  to  the  origin  and  the  facts  of  nature.  This 
system  was  the  speculation  of  an  ignorant  tribe  in  an 
ignorant  age  of  the  world.  Yet  theology  blended  its 
religious  dogmas  with  these  scientific  speculations ;  and 
as,  in  the  progress  of  knowledge,  these  crude  fancies  of 
the  infant  world  about  nature  are  necessarily  set  aside  by 
successive  discoveries,  the  dogmas  must  go  with  them. 
Insensibly  men  feel  that  a  tribe  so  mistaken  about  visible 
nature,  must  naturally  have  been  mistaken  about  invisible 
nature.  The  people  find  that  they  have  been  deceived 
by  their  religious  teachers, — deceived  about  the  sky, 
about  the  earth,  and  their  own  origin, — and  they  imbibe 
a  suspicion  of  those  teachers.  An  atmosphere  of  sus- 
picion settles  around  every  church  and  priest.  Universal 
scepticism  prevails.  It  is  that  scepticism  which  in 
England  has  quenched  the  fires  of  Smithfield,  abolished 
tithes,  opened  Universities  to  heresy,  and  which  steadily 
severs  Church  from  State, 


IV. 


On  the  other  hand  there  are  theologians  who  instead 
of  indulging  the  dream  that  the  Darwinian  theory  will 
leave  religion  just  where  it  was  before,  announce  that  it 
is  cutting  the  faith  of  man  up  by  the  roots.  They  declare 
that  it  abolishes  God,  destroys  the  hope  of  inmortality> 
and  resolves  morality  itself  into  a  mere  mechanic  force. 


PRE-DARWJNITE AND  POST-DARIVINITE  WORLD.    87 

Such  phantoms  are  familiar,  but  they  become  more 
tbin  with  each  reappearance.  Our  fathers  heard  that  the 
pillars  of  the  universe  had  fallen  again  and  again,  when 
it  only  turned  out  that  somebody's  little  idol  had  col- 
lapsed. "  The  giving  up  of  the  sun's  motion  is  giving  up 
the  foundation  of  religion,"  said  they  who  burned  the 
book  of  Copernicus  and  the  body  of  Bruno.  "The 
giving  up  of  witchcraft  is  giving  up  the  Bible,"  said  Sir 
Matthew  Hale.  We  have  grown  accustomed  to  such 
alarms,  and  can  consider  such  things  with  the  assured 
calmness  of  long  experience. 

Unquestionably  a  revolution  has  occurred.  No  one 
can  peruse  the  common  literature  of  the  day  without 
recognising  that  the  theory  of  Darwin  has  given  the 
world  new  eyes  with  which  to  look  at  nearly  everything. 
Each  truth  is  a  mother-truth,  and  brings  forth  a  family 
of  other  truths.  The  faculties  of  man,  too,  are  a  fra- 
ternity, and  what  comes  to  one  passes  to  all  the  rest.  If 
we  examine  the  mental  condition  of  the  world  before  this 
theory  was  impressed  upon  it,  we  shall  find  even  advanced 
and  liberal  men  taking  views  of  the  nature  of  things  which 
now  seem  antiquarian.  Take  the  pre-Darwinice  ration- 
alist ;  what  did  he  believe  ?  He  did  not  believe  the 
miracles  of  the  Bible,  nor  modern  superstitions ;  but  the 
supernatural ist  could  easily  press  him  into  a  corner  by 
compelling  him  to  admit  that  the  world  began  by  a 
miracle,  that  man  began  by  a  miracle,  and  that  each  star 
in  the  sky,  each  animal  on  earth,  was  formed  from  nothing 
by  the  creative  fiat  of  the  deity.  The  theist  repeated  as 
often  as  the  orthodox  the  words — "  God  said.  Let  there 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


be  light,  and  there  was  light ;"  "  God  made  man  in  his 
own  image."  Then  the  pre-Danvinite  rationalist  easily 
conceded  that  Milton's  version  was  true, — and  that  the 
first  man  and  woman  sprang  from  the  hand  of  God  in  all 
perfection  of  intelligence  and  beauty,  and  able  to  speak 
a  perfect  language.  There  were,  of  course,  exceptions. 
Some  did  not  believe  in  any  God  at  all ;  but  the  average 
rationalist  of  our  memory,  who  still  held  to  a  God,  thus 
conceived  of  him  as  an  Almighty  Mechanic  and  Contriver. 
Upon  the  moral  world  he  looked  with  awe,  seeing  in  it  a 
chaos  over  which  the  principles — Good  and  Evil — per- 
petually struggled.  His  great  problem  was  as  to  free  will 
or  necessity ;  his  hope,  that  by  the  divine  will  good  would, 
finally  triumph  over  evil. 

Then  Darwinism  came  and  gave  every  department  of 
inquiry  a  new  point  of  departure,  and  a  new  theorem. 
It  was  found  that  even  the  blind  elements  had  shaped 
themselves  in  accordance  with  principles  of  adaptation  to 
necessary  circumstances ;  that  life  had  begun  everywhere 
in  the  feeblest  and  lowest  forms  ;  that  the  first  man  and 
Woman  were  savages  but  little  raised  above  the  brute  ; 
that  there  was  no  evidence  whatever  of  any  such  Creation 
as  was  represented  in  the  old  belief  in  an  original  vacuum  ; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  every  probability  that  the  substance 
of  things  had  always  existed  and  would  exist.  The 
philologists  proved  that  language,  instead  of  being  a 
miraculous  gift,  had  grown  up  like — perhaps  out  of — the 
cries  of  animals.  In  a  word,  the  idea  of  a  Mighty 
Mechanic,  a  Supreme  Wonder-worker,  was  driven  out  of 
the  conception  of  the  rationalist. 


PKE-DA R  WINITE  AXD  POST-DAR  WINITE  WORLD.    89 


V. 


And  what  has  thereby  been  lost  ?  Nothing  whatever, 
I  contend,  which  could  be  of  the  slightest  advantage  to 
the  religious  nature  of  man,  but  much  that  hampered  and 
misdirected  it.  For  this  conception  of  an  arbitrary  Creator 
involved  the  notion  of  a  gigantic  man, — a  will  like  our 
own,  though  much  more  powerful.  And  this  notion  in- 
volved the  darkest  of  problems — why  this  Omnipotent 
Maker  did  not  make  things  better  ?  Why  did  he  create 
a  world  full  of  imperfections  and  bitter  pains  and  evils  ? 
The  orthodox  could  explain  these  evils  by  declaring  all 
nature  to  be  under  a  curse,  but  the  rationalist  was  simply 
left  in  a  cloud. 

But  does  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection,  then,  expel 
'God  from  the  universe  ?  Does  it  imply  that  in  all  these 
fair  worlds,  amid  all  this  beauty,  there  is  no  intimation  of 
a  divine  Being?  By  no  means.  It  has  simply  broken 
up  an  old  belief  as  to  the  relation  of  that  Being  to  the 
universe.  As  theology  had  in  the  far  past  narrowed 
him  to  the  seven-planet  theory,  or  again  fancied  that  the 
sun  rose  every  morning  because  God  waked  it  up,  and 
declared  in  each  case  that  God  was  driven  from  the 
universe  whenever  a  law  was  substituted  for  his  imme- 
diate action,  so  now  we  see  the  infirmity  of  mind  which 
can  see  no  God  except  as  prisoned  in  its  crude  notion. 
Darwinism  simply  says  to  the  human  mind — Once  more 
you  have  been  found  wrong  in  your  speculations  as  to 
God's  relation   to  this  universe.      Once  more  you  are 


go  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

proved  unable  to  comprehend  the  Incomprehensible. 
Once  more  you  are  taught  to  abstain  from  dogmatising 
where  you  cannot  know,  and  to  learn  humility ! 

But  still,  above  our  crumbled  creeds  and  vanished 
speculations  the  ancient  heavens  declare  a  divine  glory; 
still  day  speaketh  unto  day,  and  night  unto  night  showeth 
knowledge  ;  and  man  may  still  reverently  raise  his  reason 
to  contemplate  order  and  beauty  in  the  universe.  Out  of 
decay  and  death  springs  the  flower  with  its  breath  of  love, 
and  over  earthly  ruin  bends  the  tender  sky.  There  is 
nothing  whatever  in  this  theory  which  veils  to  man  a 
single  expression  of  wisdom,  or  love  shining  through 
the  mystery  around  him. 

Nay,  on  the  contrary,  I  will  maintain  that  this  theory 
has  added  fresh  tints  of  love,  brighter  beams  of  reason 
to  the  universe  by  opening  our  eyes  to  new  aspects  of  it. 
It  has  illuminated  for  the  first  time  the  dreary  track  of 
pain  and  wrong.  The  pre-Darwinite  might  say  to  the 
suffering,  "  I  hope  and  trust  your  pain  is  for  some  good 
end.;"  but  the  post-DarwmJte  can  say  with  confidence, 
"  I  know  and  see  that  pain  is  a  beneficent  agent.  Pain 
has  been  the  spur  under  which  the  whole  world  has  pro- 
gressed. To  escape  danger,  to  survive  pain,  every  form 
has  gained  its  fleetness,  its  skill,  its  power :  the  hardships 
of  nature  gave  man  his  arts  to  conquer  it ;  the  cruel 
elements  built  his  home ;  and  in  the  black  ink  of  sin 
were  written  the  laws  of  morality  and  civilisation." 

And  if  this  theory  has  for  the  first  time  taught  man  the 
sublime  uses  of  evil,  none  the  less  .has  it  harmonised 
nature  with  the  laws  of  his  reason.     For  in  their  best 


PRE-DARWINiTEANDPOST-DARWINITE  WORLD.    91 

statement  the  old  pre-Darwinite  views  of  nature  made  it 
discordant  with  the  intellectual  history  of  man.  History 
shows  us  a  continuous  moral,  mental,  and  religious  deve- 
lopment of  humanity.  The  theories,  the  philosophies, 
the  creeds  of  mankind  have  not  been  distinct  and  isolated 
creations  ;  they  have  been  an  unbroken  series  of  religions, 
schools,  ideas,  each  growing  out  of  one  preceding,  giving 
birth  to  another,  so  that  step  by  step  we  trace  philosophy 
back  from  Huxley  to  Moses,  or  religion  from  Christendom 
to  Assyria  and  India.  This  unbroken  evolution  of  thought 
in  human  history  we  find  repeated  in  the  unfolding 
intellect  of  every  individual  being.  We  do  not  think  one 
thing,  and  then  a  totally  different  thing,  and  feel  that  there 
is  no  link  binding  our  days  and  our  purposes  together 
into  a  life  that  represents  an  individuality.  Yet  we  had 
long  been  looking  out  into  nature  and  seeing  it  as  a 
set  of  distinct  creations ;  one  form  made,  then  another. 
We  may  well  reverence  the  great  men  who  have  found 
in  the  universe  one  theme  with  endless  variations. 
They  have  enabled  us  to  hear  a  grand  music  such  as 
Plato  dreamed  of  as  the  harmony  to  which  the  planets 
moved.  Finding  now  that  his  moral  and  intellectual 
history  have  in  their  development  repeated  in  higher 
series  the  growth  of  the  physical  world  that  bore  him, 
man  takes  his  own  brain  as  his  standpoint,  and  from  the 
summit  of  his  own  thought  sees  the  immeasurable  thought 
reflected  in  nature  so  far  as  his  intelligence  can  reach. 

Nor  has  the  post-Darwinite  world  lost  any  rational  hope 
held  by  the  pre-Darwinite, — neither  for  the  present  or  for 
the  future.     For  rational  men,  emancipated  from  fables, 


92  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

immortality  has  long  been  a  high  hope ;  and  a  high  hope 
it  will  remain,  untouched  by  the  fact  of  his  birth  out  of 
the  organic  world.  So  far  as  that  hope  rested  upon  the 
dignity  of  the  human  being,  it  is  increased  by  a  theory 
which  shows  that  for  millions  of  ages  the  forms  and  forces 
of  the  world  were  all  employed  in  preparing  and  working 
out  the  marvel  of  a  human  brain.  He  may  well  argue 
that  nature  will  fitly  cherish  the  gem  which  it  cost  seons 
to  produce,  and  myriads  of  busy  hands  to  polish. 

And  as  to  this  world,  the  new  theory  has  caused  a  hope 
to  dawn  over  us  so  dazzling  that  our  eyes  can  hardly  yet 
bear  it.  It  has  revealed  that  the  force  which  has  built 
up  from  a  zoophyte  the  wondrous  frame  of  man,  remains 
still  in  our  hands,  ready  to  lay  hold  on  man  himself  and 
build  him  into  a  nobler  race;  to  fossilize  deformity  and 
liberate  every  power;  ready  to  apply  the  omnipotent 
universe  for  the  culture  of  man  and  his  dwelling-place, 
causing  social  deserts  to  rejoice  and  blossom  like  the  rose. 

VI. 

The  history  of  the  world  shows  that  the  dreaded  dis- 
coveries of  one  age  become  the  cherished  beliefs  of 
another.  Few  men  aroused  more  alarm  by  discoveries 
than  Newton,  yet  few  other  men's  names  are  now  oftener 
uttered  with  reverence  by  theologians,  and  pulpits  illus- 
trate by  his  theories  that  divine  existence  they  once 
seemed  to  imperil.  But  that  is  not  a  healthy  moral  con- 
dition of  the  world  in  which  truth  is  always  dealt  with  as 
an   enemy  whca  it  fust  appears,  and  only  treated  as  a. 


PRE-DARWINITE  AND  rOST-DARWJNITE  WORLD.    93 

friend  after  he  ^yho  discovered  it  is  dead.  That  is  very 
disheartening  to  the  intellectual  world.  We  shall  never 
have  the  really  great  progress  in  knowledge  so  long  as 
every  youth  sees  that  the  prosaic  world  regards  with 
wrath  the  messengers  that  bring  tidings  of  newly- 
discovered  laws  and  truths. 

It  is  not  at  all  certain  that  the  fault  of  such  a  state  of 
things  rests  exclusively  with  the  world  at  large.  There 
would  seem  to  be  a  fault  with  the  men  of  science  also. 
It  may  be  that  it  was  the  long  ages  of  persecution  which 
has  driven  science  into  a  sort  of  scholarly  hermitage, 
from  which  it  sends  out  works  so  full  of  hard  teclinical 
words  derived  from  the  dead  tongues  once  made  com- 
pulsory lest  the  people  should  understand  them  ;  and  it 
may  have  been  the  old  theological  monopoly  of  the 
speculative  moral  and  emotional  realms  of  human  interest 
which  originally  relegated  the  savant  to  that  hard, 
unpoetical  aspect  of  his  facts  from  which  he  so  rarely 
ventures,  and  even  now,  it  must  be  admitted,  only  with 
risk  of  stern  remand  to  the  valley  of  dry  bones.  What- 
ever may  be  the  reason,  it  is  plain  that  for  lack  of  more 
general  "  scientific  use  of  the  imagination,"  or  other 
cause,  some  of  the  most  important  discoveries  are  still 
lingering  in  fragmentary  isolation, — stones  of  stumbling, 
because  left  in  the  way  instead  of  being  fitted  into  the  wall. 

I  was  conversing  with  some  gentlemen  on  ihe  subject 
of  evolution  in  its  purely  scientific  aspects.  A  lady  sat 
listening,  and  when  the  others  had  gone,  she  remarked 
to  me,  "  It  is  a  most  horrible  doctrine."  I  was  startled 
by  her  look — there  was  on  it  pallor,  and  an  expression  of 


94  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

mental  suffering.  "  What  is  horrible  ?  "  I  asked.  "  Why, 
that  doctrine  you  have  been  all  talking  about — the  sur- 
vival of  the  strongest.  It  may  be  that  it  is  the  law  of 
nature  that  the  weak  should  be  trampled  out  by  the 
strong,  but  it  is  dreadful."  Her  eyes  were  filled  with 
tears.  I  answered,  "  I  believe  in  no  such  doctrine  as 
the  survival  of  the  strongest, — nor  do  those  scientific 
men  believe  in  it.  They  believe  in  the  survival  of  the 
fittest ;  but  mere  strength  is  not  fitness.  The  survival  of 
the  strongest  were  indeed  a  horrible  doctrine  ;  but  all 
nature  is  against  it.  Huge  monstrous  things  that  were 
only  strong — ^moving  mountains  of  force,  mammoth  and 
megalosaurus — have  perished  because  they  were  merely 
strong,  and  so  not  fit  to  survive  ;  the  forms  of  cruelty  and 
brute  force  have  had  to  give  way  before  things  much 
weaker ;  the  lions  have  decreased  before  the  lambs  ;  and 
man,  weakest  of  all  animals  at  birth,  has  been  awarded 
the  sceptre  of  the  world  because  he  was  fittest  through  his 
power  to  love,  to  consider,  to  deny  himself  for  others." 

I  had  the  happiness  of  witnessing  the  relief  of  that 
young  heart  when  she  discovered  her  mistake, — that  the 
horrible  doctrine  of  the  reign  of  brute  force  has  been 
especially  crushed  by  that  of  evolution,  which  proves  the 
steady  triumph  of  the  gentle  forces  of  sympathy  and 
justice.  How  much  misunderstanding  of  this  kind 
envelopes  all  great  truths  when  they  first  ascend  the 
horizon,  so  that  human  hearts  tremble  like  the  watching 
shepherds  when  they  saw  their  star.  "  The  glory  of  the 
Lord  shone  round  about  tliem,  and  they  were  sore  afraid." 
'Tis  an  old  poem,  but  ever  repeated. 


PRE-DARWINIIE AND POST-DARWINITE  WORLD.    95 

It  is  the  very  evangel  of  our  time  that  knowledge  is 
shadowing  out  the  moral  essence  of  the  world.  It  has 
shown  mere  physical  power  steadily  decreasing,  and  the 
power  of  thought  and  love  increasing,  and  it  has  thus 
discovered  for  the  humane  a  new  basis  for  their  hope,  a 
new  spur  for  their  effort.  Ferocity  is  a  weakness ; 
fanaticism  is  feebleness ;  selfishness  is  suicidal :  Turkey 
feels  it ;  Spain  feels  it ;  Kome  is  learning  it.  Love, 
Justice,  Knowledge,  lead  the  world,  and  human  hearts 
may  now  sing  unto  their  Lord  a  new  song  L 

VII. 

A  new  song  !  and  yet  that  which  is  now  a  matter  of 
knowledge  was  of  old  felt  out  by  the  intuition  and  faith 
of  great  hearts.  It  was  felt  out  by  Christ,  who  estimated 
things  by  their  sentiment — by  their  spirit — and  not  by 
their  outward  size  and  seeming  strength.  He  anticipated 
the  whole  story  of  moral  evolution.  To  the  lowly,  he  said,  is 
given  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  humility  shall  inherit  the 
earth.  He  had  faith  that  ideas  could  level  the  loftiest 
temples  stone  by  stone,  and  perfect  faith  move  mountains. 
He  could  see  a  vast  property  in  a  widow's  mite,  and 
emptiness  in  the  costliest  offering.  He  valued  the  sym- 
pathy of  a  woman  whom  others  scorned  more  than  the 
gifts  of  the  proud.  A  cup  of  cold  water  given  for  truth's 
sake  carried  with  it  a  divine  virtue.  He  looked  not  to  the 
thing  done,  whether  it  were  large  or  little,  but  to  the  heart 
and  worth  put  into  it :  nothing  could  be  large  that  had  no 
soul  in  it,  nothing  could  be  small  which  had  in  it  one 


96  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

spark  of  love  and  truth.  Is  there  no  philosophy  in  all 
this  ?  Why  modern  knowledge  has  almost  abolished 
distinctions  of  great  and  small.  It  reads  one  law  in  the 
rounding  of  a  world  or  a  tear  ;  it  sees  in  the  smallest  im- 
provement of  plant  or  animal  the  essence  of  a  new 
kingdom.     It  discovers  the  power  of  leasts. 

It  recalls  us  to  consider  the  sages  who  did  not  hesitate 
to  match  their  heart  against  the  thrones  of  wrong  and 
error,  because  they  sought  no  ends  of  their  own,  but 
simply  the  ends  of  truth  and  right.  None  of  those  sages, 
none  of  their  ages,  stood  in  the  presence  of  greater 
causes  and  truths  than  those  amid  which  we  now  stand. 
There  are  phantasms  of  religious  terror  to  be  cleared 
away  ;  there  is  knowledge  that  can  save  millions  from 
disease  and  pain  to  be  spread  abroad  ;  there  are  prejudices 
which  dwarf  little  children  by  false  training  and  instructions 
in  error ;  there  are  others  which  make  it  almost  impossible 
for  women  to  train  themselves  for  service  to  the  Avorld,  or 
to  enter  upon  any  useful  career.  Talents  are  hid  in 
ignorance,  buried  under  prejudice.  Very  few  are  allowed 
to  devote  their  gift  to  the  task  which  needs  them,  as  they 
need  it.  Fashion  is  denying  thousands  the  work  they 
would  love,  and  uniting  them  to  that  they  love  not. 
■  What  can  we  do  amid  all  these  great  moral  necessities  ? 
So  far  as  visible  force  is  concerned  it  is  perhaps  but  a 
widow's  mite  we  can  give,  a  cup  of  water,  a  little  ointment ; 
it  may  be  we  can  bring  no  alabaster-box,  but  only  the 
tear  of  sympathy  to  the  sacred  cause.  Little  are  these  in 
themselves,  but  what  mean  they?  Whence  have  they 
come  ?     Who  can  tell  us  how  far  has  come,  and  out  of 


PKE-DAR IVINITE  AND  POST-DA RWINITE  WORLD.    97 

what  depth,  the  humblest  meed  of  sympathy  or  aid  to  a 
cause  rejected  of  men?  Out  of  what  patience,  and 
thought,  after  what  temptations  resisted  !  When  all  the 
world  is  smiting  the  unpopular  cause,  what  is  implied  if 
one  approaches  with  hand  extended  not  to  smite  but  to 
clasp  and  bless?  Out  of  all,  that  one  hand  alone 
represents  the  divine  life  and  purpose  of  nature ;  that  one 
alone  acts  for  no  selfish  end,  is  guided  by  no  low  interest ; 
bribed  by  no  mean  desire,  not  terrified  by  public  odium, 
that  heart  which  brings  its  love  and  devotion  to  the 
true  and  right  has  brought  with  it  the  might  of  every  law 
—  the  forces  of  destiny. 

When  Dr.  Johnson  was  once  loudly  defending  some 
strange  principle  of  his  against  a  company  of  gainsayers, 
all  opposed  him  it  seemed, — one  man  present  alone  said 
to  him,  "I  believe  you  are  right  !"  The  man  who  said 
that  was  John  Wesley.  Johnson  lowered  his  voice  and 
said,  "  To  have  convinced  such  a  man  as  you  is  all  I  can 
desire."  With  the  one  best  man  on  his  side  Johnson 
felt  he  was  in  the  majority. 

That  is  not  weak  which  has  won  the  faith  of  the  wise, 
and  the  love  of  the  pure  in  heart  :  though  the  wise  be 
few  and  poor,  and  the  lovers  able  to  give  but  a  cup  of 
cold  water,  yet  the  cause  so  supported  is  not  weak  :  its 
star  is  in  the  East,  its  day  will  not  recede,  it  moves  with 
steadfast  planets  in  their  courses. 


98  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


VIII. 

The  whole  tendency  and  evolution  of  the  world  has> 
been  to  the  end  of  unfolding  in  man  a  power  to  overcome 
all  the  selfishness  of  brute  nature.  Through  ages,  by 
self-seeking  the  animal  has  been  formed ;  but  now  by 
self-denial  the  animal  reaches  a  new  birth.  The  impulse 
to  love  that  which  can  give  no  recompense  to  the  lower 
nature ;  the  power  to  serve  with  unwearied  devotion  the 
true  and  right ;  these  are  the  last  and  highest  forces- 
evolved  from  nature.  They  are  the  first  signs  of  human 
freedom.  For  no  man  is  free  who  is  morally  fettered  by 
his  interests,  his  fears,  or  his  prejudices.  He  is  a  slave 
to  the  world.  A  man  is  free  only  when  he  is  able  to  go 
against  his  interests,  his  fears,  and  his  prejudices.  "  He 
is  free  whom  the  truth  makes  free" — the  man  whom 
nothing-  can  swerve  from  that. 

Religion — which  should  be  an  expression  of  this  con- 
summate force  in  nature — the  power  that  frees  man  from 
low  motives  and  makes  his  action  flow  straight  from 
reason  and  conscience, — must  itself  be  born  again. 
That  which  is  commonly  called  religion  is  not  the  loving 
service,  but  servility  under  threat  and  bribe, — and 
these  the  coarsest.  So  far  the  conventional  religion  is 
irreligious.  There  is  a  healthy  fear — the  fear  of  doing 
wrong.  There  is  a  noble  hope — the  hope  that  rectitude 
will  bring  benefit  to  all.  But  that  is  a  base  fear,  a  mean 
hope,  which  look  merely  to  personal  consequences  of 
animal  pain  and  pleasure.     How  wild  is  the  unreason 


PKE-DAR  WINITEAND  POST-DAR  WINITE  WORLD.    99 

that  tries  by  the  tremendous  menace  and  promise  of  eternal 
anguish  and  bliss^the  most  powerful  appeals  to  selfish- 
ness— to  make  men  religious,  that  is  unselfish,  acting 
purely  from  motives  of  reason  and  right.  That  such  a 
religion  as  this,  which  has  been  tried  on  human  nature 
for  ag^es,  has  failed,  can  be  matter  of  surprise  to  no 
thinking  man. 

True,  when  it  was  really  believed,  its  threats  and  bribes 
availed  to  conquer  some  of  the  ordinary  outward  effects 
of  selfishness.  It  led  monks  and  nuns  to  give  up  earthly 
for  future  gain.  It  made  fanatics  frown  on  human  joys 
to  secure  celestial  delights  and  escape  future  torment. 
For  the  Puritan  it  turned  the  face  of  nature  to  stone,  like 
a  Medusa,  and  blighted  the  sweetest  flowers  of  life.  Such 
men  gave  up  much  ;  but  the  selfish  character  remained — 
nay,  it  was  intensified.  The  type  of  character  was  also  as 
self-righteous  and  cruel  as  it  was  joyless  and  narrow. 

The  old  so-called  religion  having  failed  to  produce  the 
perfect  love  that  casteth  out  fear,  the  man  of  perfect  truth, 
whom  no  menace  of  deity  or  devil  can  turn  from  his  rec- 
titude,— where  are  we  to  look  for  the  religion  which  can 
lead  forth  that  culminating  flower  of  nature,  the  perfect 
character  ?  Only  in  the  high  fruition  of  a  religion  whose 
God  is  Love,  to  whom  the  highest  service  is  love,  whose 
law  is  not  sacrifice,  but  mercifulness.  It  is  a  reasonable 
service,  for  that  which  falling  on  the  heart  is  love,  falling 
on  the  intellect  is  reason.  It  knows  no  hell  but  false- 
hood and  wrong,  it  dreams  of  no  heaven  but  an  eternity 
of  progressive  thought  and  ever-growing  harmony.  Its 
power  has  been  manifested  in  all  time  in  the  great  lovers 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


and  saviours  of  men,  who  have  consecrated  their  lives  to 
truth,  right  and  humanity,  though  denounced  to  flames 
on  earth  and  flames  in  hell.  Every  rational  truth,  we 
hold,  has  been  planted  in  the  earth  and  nourished  with 
the  tears  of  men  who  gave  their  service  in  purity  of  love 
and  fidelity  to  truth.  Every  divine  truth  that  is  to  us  as  a 
fragrant  flower,  is  crimsoned  with  the  blood  of  a  brave 
man's  heart.  They  who  are  free  from  all  authority  but 
truth,  are  the  heirs  of  their  faith  and  trustees  of  their 
example ;  on  them  mainly  depends  w^hether,  in  the 
coming  time,  the  religion  of  love,  reason  and  right  shall 
more  largely  manifest  its  power  to  conquer  selfishness, 
without  terror,  and  stimulate  to  high  action  without  any 
sealed  contract  for  payment  in  Paradise.  To  be  able  to 
bear  on  their  work,  to  add  to  it,  and  transmit  in  fuller 
force  to  the  future,  it  is  not  necessary  that  a  man  or 
woman  should  be  eminent,  but  only  that  what  power  they 
possess  should  be  pure.  If  a  man  have  within,  firmly 
based,  that  character  which  is  organised  by  truth  and 
love,  able  to  obey  them  and  them  only,  every  thought, 
word  and  deed  of  that  man  will  further,  though  in  ways 
he  know  not,  all  right  and  true  things,  and  his  feeble 
hand  become  part  of  the  law  that  upholds  the  universe. 

More  than  any  Sufi  does  the  believer  in  evolution  feel 
himself  walking  through  life  on  the  perilous  scimitar-edged 
bridge,  Al-Sirat ;  between  vast  worlds  of  happiness  and 
misery.  On  the  one  side  the  abyss  of  animalism,  on  the 
other  the  radiant  realm  where  every  aspiring  power 
within  him  finds  its  fruition.  How  often  will  he  turn 
upon  himself  and  ask,  am  I  yet  a   real  man?     Am  I 


PKE-DAR VVINITEAND  POST- DARWINITE  WORLD.  loi 

acting  from  high  or  from  low  motives  ?     Am   I  in  any- 
thing acting  from  motives  of  pride,  of  prejudice,  or  with 
a  view  to  mere  personal  ends  ?      If  so,  how  can  I  belong 
to   that   kingdom  of  pure  truth  and   perfect   rectitude, 
which  is  the  high  and  fair  religion  that  the  ages  have  been 
building  ?    If  impelled  by  passion,  how  am  I  better  than 
those  lower  orders  whose  natural  life  is    passion  ?      If 
acting  selfishly,  what  am  I  but  a  higher  form,  perhaps 
therefore  more  dangerous,  of  the  creature  prowling  for  its 
prey  ?  Why,  anybody  can  do  that !  Any  creature  can  be 
angry,  and  obstinate,  and  forget  all  but  himself ;  nature 
abounds  in  horns   and  stings.       It    hasn't   required   a 
million  ages  merely  to  evolve  that  type  of  man  that  can 
stick  to  his  wrong  and  injure  others.     But  nature  might 
well  have  laboured  a  myriad  ages  to  produce  a  man  who 
would  rather  be  injured  than  injure  another,  and  who  is 
great  enough  when  he  is  wrong  to  hold  his  pride  under- 
foot, and  say  "  I  have  been  wrong."     That  is  greatness. 
It  is,  indeed,  a  high  and  steep  ladder,  that  by  which  a 
man  must  climb  out  of  his  lower  up  to  his  higher  nature  ; 
one  slip  towards  the  false,  one  backward  fall,  and  he  re- 
lapses in  the  scale  of  moral  being,  and  adds  his  weight  to 
all  the  baser  forces  of  the  earth.       Love  and  truth  alone 
can  save  and  uplift  us.     Let  none  attempt  to  deny  or 
evade  the  grave  necessity.     Moral  evolution  is  not  only 
true,  it  is  a  tremendous  truth.      He  who  shall  realise  it 
will   in   that   instant  fall  upon   his  knees  in  the  awful 
presence  of  conscience,  and  there  make  his  solemn  vow. 
To  Truth  he  will  appeal, — ""Take  me,  fill  me  with  thy  pure 
spirit!    If  to  thee  I  have  been  at  any  time  disloyal,  if  I 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


have  fostered  any  conscious  error,  or  practiced  any  mean 
concealment,  or  acted  on  considerations  of  mere  expe- 
diency,— pardon  me,  thou  one  only  light  of  mortals,  and 
henceforth  witness  that  I  speak  and  live  the  simple  truth ! 
And  thou,  spirit  of  Love,  let  me  come  to  rest  upon  thy 
gentle  breast  !  If  I  have  wandered  from  thee — have 
steeled  my  heart  against  my  brother — forgotten  charity — 
thought  only  of  myself — forgive  me,  sweetest  and  best — 
pardon  me,  thou  Love  which  alone  can  make  life  worth 
living, — and  henceforth  may  my  word  and  deed  be  not 
mine,  but  proceed  from  thy  pure  and  perfect  heart  ! " 

Anew  is  the  commandment  given  to  us — If  any 
will  be  great  let  him  serve.  Let  him  seek  not  to  be  min- 
istered unto,  but  to  minister.  Let  him  turn  his  back  on 
self  and  its  low  successes  :  let  him  trust  himself  absolutely 
to  love  that  must  prevail,  and  truth  that  cannot  fail, — 
and  then  wherever  he  may  stand,  beside  him  stand  the 
law  and  the  majesty  of  God. 


VI. 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  THE  GREAT. 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  THE  GREAT. 


ARDLY   any    region    of   the  world    is  without 

certain  consecrated  footprints,  beheved  to  have 

J     been  left  by  some  great  religious  teacher  ;  over 


them  temples  are  built,  and  around  them  pious  offerings 
are  suspended.  In  one  place  it  is  the  footprint  of  Indra, 
in  another  of  Krishna,  in  another  of  Buddha,  and  there 
is  a  famous  footprint  of  Vishnu  in  Kashmir.  On  the 
summit  of  what  is  called  Adam's  Peak  in  Ceylon,  there 
is  a  footprint  to  which  all  sects  lay  claim,—  Buddhists 
calling  it  Buddha's  ;  Sivaites,  Siva's  ;  Mahommetans, 
Adam's  ;  Christians,  St.  Thomas's.  This  is  the  Sri-pada, 
or  '^  beautiful  footstep,'  —a  natural  formation  with  but  a 
faint  resemblance  to  a  footstep.  Suggested  by  this, 
perhaps  is  the  Phrabat  (holy  footprint)  of  Siam,  which  is 
artificial  but  very  ancient,  is  five  feet  long  by  two  broad, 
and  on  which  has  been  carved  nearly  every  symbol  of 
oriental  religion.  It  is  the  reputed  footstep  of  Buddha, 
who  is  believed  by  his  worshippers  to  have  had  all  these 
sacred  emblems  upon  his  blessed  feet.  This  footprint 
was  a  sacred  thing  before  the  Christian  era  (the  toe  of  it 


io6  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

was  kissed  by  pilgrims  1,000  years  before  the  Pope's). 
There  are  the  artificial  footprints  on  Mount  Olivet,  said 
to  have  been  left  by  Christ  as  he  ascended.  Near  Rome, 
in  the  Church  of  San  Sebastiano  outside  the  city,  I  saw 
in  marble  alleged  footprints  of  Christ.  Jesus  is  said  to 
have  appeared  to  Peter,  who  said  "  Lord,  whither  goest 
thou?"  and  Jesus  answered,  "To  Rome,  to  be  crucified 
afresh  I"  The  two  prints  of  bare  feet  are  generally 
surrounded  by  worshippers.  At  Poitiers  in  France  there 
are  two  footprints  of  Christ  in  the  Church  of  St.  Radi- 
gonde,  made  when  he  appeared  to  her  there  to  inform  her 
of  her  coming  martyrdom.  There  are  even  so-called  foot- 
prints of  Jesus  in  the  Mosque  of  Omar ;  though  among 
Mahommetans  the  most  sacred  footprints  are  on  a  stone  in 
the  temple  of  Mecca,  said  to  be  those  of  Isbmael,  though 
others  ascribe  them  to  Abraham. 

Now,  while  the  superstition  of  sacred  footprints  may 
be  traced  from  the  East  borne  to  us  by  Christian  legend, 
we  can  track  them  in  purely  pagan  survival,  as  they  came 
by  Indo-Germanic  migration.  In  many  parts  of  Germany 
there  are  formations,  somewhat  footshaped,  which  are 
attributed  to  demons,  or  giants,  or  sometimes  to  heroes. 
There  are  two  immense  natural  hollows  of  this  kind  in 
the  Hartz  mountains,  near  the  village  of  Magdesprung, 
where  a  giantess  leaped  down  from  the  clouds  to  save 
one  of  her  maidens  from  danger,  and  left  these  two  foot- 
prints 200  feet  apart.  But  it  is  in  the  corresponding 
folklore  of  England  that  we  find  the  oriental  accent  of 
these  stories.  In  this  country  we  rarely  find  stones  of  a 
similar  character  called  "footprints  ;"  though  the  footprint 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  THE  GREAT.  107 

on  rock  in  the  isle  of  Thanet  was  once  very  famous. 
Where  St.  Augustine  first  stepped  ashore,  when  he  came 
bringing  the  Christian  reHgion  to  England,  the  rock  was 
said  to  have  received  tlie  mark  of  his  foot  like  wax ;  and, 
said  old  Fuller,  "  the  Romanists  will  cry  shame  on  our 
hard  hearts  if  our  obstinate  unbelief,  more  stubborn  than 
stone,  will  not  as  pliably  receive  the  impression  of  this 
miracle."  But  in  this  country  there  are  many  curious 
hollowed  or  round  stones  which  are  called  the  devil's 
quoits.  There  is  one  I  have  seen  in  Dorset,  which 
the  devil  pitched  from  the  Portland  rocks  to  Abbots- 
bury.  Another  huge  stone  in  Scotland  is  said  to  have 
been  pitched  there  from  the  distant  highlands  by  Robert 
Bruce.  But  that  such  stones  should  be  called  quoits 
connects  them  with  a  long  line  of  myths  about  the 
quoit  hurled  by  mighty  heroes,  at  the  end  of  which 
line  we  come  to  the  footstep  of  Buddha  in  Siara  in 
the  centre  of  which  is  the  sacred  quoit,  or  Chakkra, 
now  adored  above  all  things  by  Buddhists  as  symbol 
of  the  Law.  Crossing  the  ocean  you  may  find  on  a 
rock  beside  the  sea  in  New  England  the  large  hollow 
called  the  Devil's  Footstep.  The  pilgrims  escaped 
bishops,  but  the  devil  followed  them;  and  so  it  is  that 
what  began  in  the  East  as  the  track  of  a  descended  god, 
ends  on  the  other  hemisphere  as  the  footstep  of  the 
devil. 

But  if  you  pass  a  few  hundred  miles  into  the  interior  of 
America  you  leave  behind  the  last  step  of  the  Eastern 
superstition  only  to  come  upon  its  origin — in  nature. 
In  the  farthest   AUeghanies  there  is    a    mountain  cleft 


io8  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

from  summit  to  base,  1,300  feet,  by  a  tributary  of  the 
Ohio  river ;  and  on  the  brow  of  that  gorge  a  huge 
rock  which  the  early  red  men  carved  all  over  with 
signs.  The  Indians  call  it  the  Cows'  Rock:  on  it  are 
graved  the  feet  of  all  manner  of  beasts  and  birds,  and 
human  feet,  and  waving  serpents,  and  many  other 
forms.  And  what  was  this  rock?  Almost  certainly  it 
was  an  aboriginal  newspaper.  There  the  savage  carved 
for  others  to  recognise  the  token  of  what  herd  he 
had  found,  the  direction  his  steps  had  taken,  the 
danger  to  be  avoided — whether  the  serpent  or  the 
special  track  of  some  hostile  tribe — marked  in  gigantic 
size.  The  Indians  were  long  since  driven  away  from  that 
region ;  but,  had  they  been  left  there,  those  tracks  might 
even  now — their  original  use  being  lost — be  worshipped 
as  the  footprints  of  invisible  beings  or  legendary  heroes. 

Peter  Lesley,  the  American  geologist,  helps  us  to  put 
ourselves  in  the  place  of  those  primitive  men.  The  wild 
pioneer  swims  the  stream  and  rests  upon  the  rock  beyond. 
The  wet  mark  of  his  foot  is  beside  him,  just  the  thing  to 
tell  the  wanderers  who  follow  with  women  and  children 
the  point  where  he  landed.  The  wet  footprint  would 
soon  vanish,  but  with  his  rude  flint  he  carves  it  in  simple 
lithograph,  and  there  it  remains.  Or,  possibly,  he  may 
do  this  for  amusement,  while  he  waits  for  others  to  ap- 
proach. If  afterAvard  a  settlement  springs  up  there  the 
use  of  the  track  will  have  ceased,  its  origin  and  meaning 
will  be  forgotten  ;  and  wherever  real  meaning  is  lost 
superstitution  will  always  be  ready  to  supply  one  of  its 
own.     So  the  footstep  is  attributed  to  god  or  demon. 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  THE  GREAT  109 


When  the  notion  had  gained  popularity  in  one  spot  it 
would  be  copied.     There  is  no  patent  right  in  fables.     If 
the  earth  retained  the  footstep  of  Indra,  it  will  not  do 
for  it  to  be  less  plastic  for  Buddha,  for  Abraham,  or  Christ, 
as  their  several  sects  arise.     And  then  each  religion  will 
try  to  make  its  founder's  footprint  a  little  larger  than  that 
of  the   rival,  until  tliey  outgrow   belief;    and  then  they 
become  more  natural  and  realistic,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
tracks  of  Christ.    Or  a  higher  age  arrives  which  discovers 
that  a  great  man  cannot  be  measured  by  the  size  of  his  foot. 
Then  we  reach  a  phase  of  progress  when  'the  footstep 
becomes   allegorical.     The  Hindoo  god  of  destruction 
was  believed  to  have  two  chief  forms— the  deadly  lightning 
and   the    deadly  serpent.     The  cobra   snake  is  adored 
through  fear  as  his  incarnation.     But  it  was  told  there 
was  a  saviour    who  cauld   bruise   that   serpent's   head. 
Vishnu  descended,   and  his  first  step  on  earth  brought 
his  heel  on  the  .cobra's  head,  where  the  Vishnite  sees  the 
print  of  it  on  every  cobra's  head  to  this  day.     But  straight- 
way the  idea  floats  away  into  Syria.     There,  too,  we  hear 
of  a   serpent   incarnation   of  evil,  and  of  an  incarnate 
saviour  whose  heel  is  set  upon   his  head,  as  it  is  now 
pictured  in  scores  of  Christian  churches  throughout  the 
world.     Thence  come,  too,   the  race  of  dragon-slaying 
heroes  from  Apollo  to  St.  George.     No  doubt  they  all 
came  from  the  first  brave  man  who  taught  and  showed 
his  fellows  that  courage  and  skill  could  control  and  van- 
quish the  destructive  forces  of  the  world.     His  footprint 
is  carved  on  the  world  for  as   definite  a  utility  as  that 
which  copied  the  track  of  the  savage,   and  it  signals  the 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


march    of  the   higher   man    through   the    wilderness   of 
ignorance  and  fear. 

But  here,  again,  the  origin  and  use,  will  pass  away  ;  the 
significance  will  be  sunk  in  the  symbol.  With  what  pain 
would  Buddha  or  Christ,  who  taught  so  earnestly  the 
simplicity  and  pure  spirituality  of  moral  life,  could  they 
return,  behold  men  and  women  kneeling  around  their 
alleged  visible  footprints  ?  Yet  even  there  amid  the 
darkness  hearts  have  learned  to  invest  with  deeper  mean- 
ing the  footprints  of  the  great.  It  may  have  been  from 
beside  one  of  them  that  there  rose  the  chant  of  the  Tamil 
poet,  Pattanathu  : — 

In  my  heart  I  place  the  feet, 

The  golden  feet  of  God. 

Within,  beyond  man's  highest  word 

My  God  existeth  still  : 

In  sacred  books,  in  darkest  night, 

In  deepest,  bluest  sky, 

In  those  who  know  the  truth,  and  in 

The  faithful  few  on  earth. 

And  after  all  we  need  not  bear  hard  upon  the  symbol. 
If  we  interpreted  alien  religions  as  their  believers  wish 
them  interpreted,  we  sliould  find  that  every  such  external 
footprint  is  countersigned  by  a  footprint  within.  There 
are  many  hundreds  of  them  in  the  world,  but  each  marks 
where  a  real  man  has  trod.  The  impress  of  a  life  preceded 
each  impress  on  the  rock.  The  great  man  passed  there 
and  the  earth  felt  him, — never  lost  the  trace  and  imprint 
of  him.  Where  he  first  passed  is  now  a  highway.  Un- 
counted millions  of  feet  have  made  the  high  road.  But 
among  them  all,  and  above  them,  will  be  distinguished 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  THE  GREAT. 


the  footstep,  brave  and  firm,  of  him  who  trod  there  when 
it  was  dangerous  jungle  or  jagged  rock,  and  whose  steps 
were  marked  with  his  blood.     Such  were  the  great  fore- 
runners of   thought,   of  knowledge  and  virtue.      They 
broke  a  path  for  man  through  the  wilds  of  error,  the  fero- 
cities of  wrong.     They  manfully  pressed  on — aye,  every 
one   of  them   whose    symbolic    footprint    is    honoured 
this     day  —  with     undaunted    faith     on     ways    where 
poverty  and  grief  were  their  gaunt  companions,  where 
terror,   crucifixion,    death    took   their   toll   at   the   end. 
Millions  have  since  walked  the  same  path  in  safety  and 
happiness.     The  path  of  flint  and  thorn,  where  trod  the 
martyr's  bleeding  feet,  becomes  at  last  a  fair  street  of  the 
Beautiful  City.     But    out  of  all   the  footsteps  that  have 
beaten  the  highways  of  humanity,  we  select  those  early 
ones — so  tried,  so  true — not  ashamed  to  clasp,  to  kiss  the 
blessed  feet  that  were  pierced  in  leading  the  way   to  our 
freedom  and  our  joy.     I  will  fain  hope   that  around  the 
visible  footprints  hover  the  solemn  influences  of  those  of 
whom  they  are  memorials.       I  will  trust  that  deep  in  the 
hearts  of  those  who  climb  on  their  knees  that  stairway  at 
Rom.e  by  which  they  believe  a  great  and  true  n;an  des- 
cended from  a  judgment-seat  of  power  to  his  death,— there 
is  some  love  and  reverence,  and  a  struggling  onward  to 
what  little  beam  of  light  may  so  mingle  with  the  darkness 
of  their  dungeon.     There  is  always  a  germ  of  nobleness 
in  the  mind  that  has  reverence  ;    and  though  that  germ 
can  never  spring  to  flower  and  fruit  if  bound  in  the  shell 
of  formalism,  it  is  something  that  it  is  there;  springtide 
is  searching  for  it. 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


At  any  rate,  if  we  have  lost  sight  of  these  external 
symbolic  footprints,  it  were  little  gain  if  we  did  not  all 
the  more  realise  the  moral  impress  which  a  great  soul 
leaves  upon  the  world,  and  upon  every  true  heart  in  the 
world.  How  many  people  around  us  who  adore  the 
outward  ancient  footprint  of  Christ — his  cross  it  may  be, 
or  his  pierced  hands  and  feet — are  able  to  recognise  his 
living  footsteps,  felt  in  their  daily  history  ?  More  alive  is  he 
to-day  than  many  we  meet  on  the  street.  Who  hears  his 
footfall  as  he  moves  invisibly  through  the  world,  and 
burns  through  its  hard  forms  with  the  fiery  passionof  a  heart 
in  pain  to  seek  and  save  men  ?  Hark  !  Do  you  know 
that  voice  of  righteous  wrath  against  those  who  count 
their  gains,  or  weigh  their  party  schemes,  while  men 
are  perishing,  that  cry  of  anguish  from  a  soul  which 
feels  the  suffering  of  men  and  women  he  never  saw,  as 
if  they  were  his  own  children  ?  When  perfunctory  first 
lords  fail,  there  are  First  Lords  of  the  Treasury  of  a 
nation's  heart  who  start  forth  and  issue  commands 
that  must  and  will  be  obeyed.  The  footprints  of  the 
saviours  of  men  in  all  time  are  the  hearts  that  are  saving 
men  now.  They  that  left  kings'  courts  for  wildernesses,  and 
they  who  perished  between  the  altar  and  the  temple,  he 
who  drank  hemlock  and  he  that  was  crucified,  they  are  all 
moving  on  with  every  true  man;  they  have  moulded  his 
brain,  transfused  his  every  vein  with  their  blood,  and 
through  him  still  carry  on  their  work  of  mercy  and  justice. 

It  is  a  proverbial  saying  in  the  East  that  the  foot- 
prints of  prophets  can  never  be  covered  by  any  pavement. 
No  conventional  customs,  no  decorous  routine,  be  it  laid 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  THE  GREAT.  113 

with  marble  or  with  gold,  can  hide  those  footprints  of  the 
great  which  have  sunk  deep  into  human  souls.  And  if  our 
own  hearts  are  worth  anything,  they  will  be  footprints  of 
those  same  saviours.  Any  other  Buddhism,  any  other 
Christianity  than  this  is  mere  worship  of  fictitious  foot- 
prints in  mouldy  stone  ;  not  totally  worthless  perhaps,  but 
quite  fruitless  of  real  benefit  to  ourselves  or  others.  But  let 
us  know  that  no  true  step  or  stand  of  a  true  man — how- 
ever lowly  or  limited  his  lot — ever  yet  failed  to  leave  a 
lasting  impress  on  this  earth.  Indistinguishable  it  may 
be  amid  the  multitude  that  press  along  the  pathways, 
they  still  do  their  part  to  make  those  pathways  wider 
and  firmer.  Happy  indeed  shall  they  be  if  to  them  fall 
the  high  privilege  of  leading  the  way  to  regions  not  yet 
trodden  by  the  many  !  Happy  if  theirs  be  the  splendid 
opportunity  of  advancing  where  reason  and  rectitude 
point,  even  though  the  people  warn  of  danger  and  refuse 
to  follow,  and  resist  !  It  is  sometimes  good  to  serve 
mankind  as  they  desire  \  it  is  great  to  serve  them  in  ways 
they  like  not,  ways  unpopular  and  unrewarded.  Even  so 
did  the  saviours  and  prophets  who  were  before  us ;  and 
great  is  their  reward.  ^^l1at  is  greater  than  to  be 
numbered  with  those  who  extended  the  boundaries  of 
human  freedom  and  thought,  who  enlarged  the  hope  and 
the  vision  of  mankind  ?  If  we  could  but  so  advance  the 
world  but  by  an  inch — a  hair's-breath — that  hair's-breath 
were  worth  to  us  more  than  all  the  wealth  and  honours 
that  crown  any  other  earthly  success.  And  that  high 
possibility  of  influence  is  not  far  from  anv  ow::  of  us. 
Unattainable  by  any  force  of  personal  ambition  or  self- 


114  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

centred  aim  whatever,  it  is  open  to  all  who  can  see  how 
self-devotion  and  pure  principle  can  make  the  smallest 
things  sublime.  He  need  not  envy  any  lot,  however 
seeming  high  and  happy,  who  knows  the  secret  of  living 
and  working  where  he  is,  in  accord  with  his  own  highest 
standard.  The  universal  law  of  gravitation  is  just  as 
much  present  where  a  pebble  rolls  as  where  a  world 
moves  ;  and  every  life  obedient  to  right,  ruled  by  justice 
and  by  love,  is  caught  up  into  the  great  order  and  borne 
on  to  ends  higher  than  its  happiest  dreams. 

For  Nature  and  Events  will  generally  shape  our  ends 
better  than  we  can  do  it  ourselves.     It  is  far  better  to  live 
by  principle  than  by  plan.     I  sometimes  marvel,  reading 
the  lives  of  men  who  made  epochs,  how  little  they  knew  of 
the  kind  of  service  they  were  doing  the  world.    There  was 
simple-hearted  John  Wesley,  who  to  his  dying  day  thought 
himself  a  Church  clergyman  and  wore  his  gown.     He  too 
has  left  his  footprints  deep.     John  Wesley  once  went  to 
the  little  town  of  Epworth  where  he  was  born,  hoping  to 
preach  in  the  parish  church  where  from  his  own  father's 
lips  he  had  learned  what  the  Church  preached,  but  he 
meant  to  practise.     When  he  arrived  at  the  church  door 
he  found  it  barred  against  him.     Followed  by  the  crowd 
he  went  out  into  the  graveyard,  and  taking  his  father's 
tombstone  for  a  pulpit  uttered  there  the  prophecy  which 
the  Church  refused   to  hear.     He  departed,  but  to  this 
day  the  people  of  Epworth  will  show  you  on  that  grave- 
stone marks  of  the  feet  of  John  Wesley.     Those  litde 
hoiiows  represent  nearly  all  that  many  of  his  own  fol- 
lowers, as  well  as  of  the  Church,  can  see  of  the  great  and 


FOOTPRINTS  OF  THE  GREAT.  115 

good  man ;  a  dent  in  the  old  Church,  a  superstition  in 
the  new.  But  the  revolution  which  Wesley  wrought,  and 
one  that  can  never  go  backward,  is  what  neither  he  nor 
they  appreciated, — he  showed  that  a  better  Hfe  could  be 
built  up  outside  the  church  than  in  it.  He  proved  that 
the  forces  of  virtue,  of  character,  love,  moral  beauty, 
were  out  there  in  the  churchyard ;  the  church  could  bar 
them  out,  but  not  bar  them  in — no  more  than  it  could 
imprison  the  sunshine.  So  unconsciously  Wesley  broke 
the  church  charm  forever,  and  liberation  has  gone  on 
ever  since.  That  is  a  thing  no  man  could  plan.  But  if 
we  will  get  the  real  footprint  of  Wesley,  and  not  the 
fancied  one  at  Epworth,  it  will  be  in  like  him  building 
up  the  very  best  lives  and  characters  outside  the  proud 
pale  of  superstition.  The  heaviest  blow  man  or  woman 
can  strike  at  dogma  is  to  render  a  better  life  than  dogma 
can  produce.  When  Romanism  fell  in  England  it  was 
because  the  best  heart  and  head  were  doing  such  work 
outside  of  it  that  its  rites  became  paltry ;  and  when 
protestant  superstition  dies  it  will  be  for  the  same  reason. 
So  every  honest,  true  life  that  is  lived  apart  from  those 
fables  and  creeds  is  setting  upon  the  human  heart 
another  sign  and  seal  of  liberation. 

Ah  yes,  my  friend,  it  is  yours  too  to  make  on  earth  the 
footprint  of  a  man.  The  timid  shall  see  it  and  gain 
courage.  They  shall  say — "  See,  there  stood,  there 
moved  a  man — a  real  man.  He  bowed  to  no  idols, 
obased  his  soul  to  no  prejudices,  yet  was  he  humble  ;  he 
was  not  restrained  by  fear,  and  yet  he  was  restrained  ;  he 
was  no  Christian,  but  what  Christian  was  more  faithful 


ii6  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

aiid  self-sacrificing  ?  "      That  is  the  footprint  to  make. 
Time  will  not  efface  it ;  nature  will  adopt  it. 

In  our  childhood  we  have  pored  over  the  story  of 
that  footprint  which  Crusoe  found  in  the  sand.  It  filled 
him  with  terror.  Seeing  none  to  make  it  he  fancied  it  a 
demon's  track.  If  a  man's,  it  was  that  of  one  larger  than 
himself.  He  built  him  a  stronghold  for  defence.  The 
tide  came  up  and  effaced  the  footstep.  The  man  who 
made  it  was  found,  and  effaced  the  terror.  What  remained 
to  Crusoe  from  the  footprint  was  a  better  house,  a  new 
friend,  a  larger  experience.  And  so  shall  the  visible 
footprints  of  great  and  small  be  obliterated  by  time  and 
tide ;  but  yet  invisibly  shall  such  as  are  true  remain  for 
ever.  The  name  of  him  who  made  it  may  be  remembered 
no  more,  but  the  service  he  did  shall  abide.  The  terror 
awakened  by  the  bold  step  for  truth  shall  pass  away,  the 
dreaded  innovation  turn  to  a  friend.  Firm  and  fearless 
then,  let  us  move  on  •  let  every  step  of  thought  or  work 
be  based  on  truth,  friendship,  justice  ;  so  shall  we  leave 
footsteps  on  the  sands  of  time — 

Footsteps  that  perhaps  another 

Saihng  o'er  life's  solemn  mam, 
A  forlorn  and  shipwrecked  brother 

Seeing,  shall  take  heart  again. 


VIL 


ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 

(1876.) 


.l^^f«l-^ 

i^^ 

^» 

SI^Oiiiiiiiiss^^^ 

^m 

ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 

(1876.) 

Father  of  All,  in  every  age. 

In  every  clime  adored, 
By  saint,  by  savage,  and  by  sage  — 

Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord  ! 

r  is  a  fair  sign  of  our  time  that  Pope's  Ijrave  verses, 
of  which  the  above  is  one,  have  become  a 
favourite  hymn  in  noany  liberal  societies.  They 
represent  that  dawning  catholicity  with  which  ascends  the 
best  and  brightest  hope  of  the  world — the  Religion  oF 
Humanity.  May  the  tong.ues  that  sing  it  multiply,  and 
the  burden  of  it  swell  and  roll  onward,  till  nations 
hear  it  from  afar  and  begin  the  chorus  which  shall 
celebrate  the  falUng  of  the  last  wall  imprisoning  the  hearts 
of  men,  and  dividing  the  moral  forces  which^  united,  can 
conquer  every  evil  of  the  world  ! 

That  "  Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord  "  should  run  together  so 
smoothly  in  a  verse,  and  cause  no  discord  in  a  musical 
theme,  is  one  more  sign  of  the  extent  to  which  the 
religious  sentiment  has  been  able  to  conquer  the  ancient 
watch-words  of  war,  and  blend  them  into  its  own  divine 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


harmonies.  For  those  three  names  of  deities^  and  many 
more  that  might  he  added  to  them,  historically  represent 
past  and  separate  continents  of  thought  and  belief.  It  is 
a  popular  fallacy  that  the  various  deities  of  races  were 
evoked  purely  by  the  religious  sentiment,  and  originally 
represented  its  conceptions  and  emotions.  Really  those 
names  were  the  crude  generalisations  of  a  primitive 
Science.  They  were  names  for  natural  forces  and  pheno- 
mena which  gradually  acquired  personification  as  causal 
or  ruling  powers.  They  were  next  caught  up  by 
Philosophy  and  made  centres  of  cosmogonies  devised  by 
the  speculative  mind.  Dreaded  at  first,  no  doubt,  by 
superstitious  feeling  as  much  as  Evolution  now,  they 
gradually  took  their  place  in  human  belief,  and  religious 
sentiment  grew  around  them, — even  as  in  later  times  it  has 
grown  around,  and  may  yet  turn  into  dogmas,  the  once 
denounced  theories  of  Newton.  Widely  different  from 
each  other  were  the  ethnical  dreams  which  deified  the 
phenomena  of  nature,  and  equally  different  the  philo- 
sophical schools  that  adopted  them  as  their  various  bases: 
the  religious  sentiment,  though  essentially  the  same 
throughout  the  world,  took  the  several  shapes  of  the 
cosmogonies  around  which  they  grew,  and  their  anta- 
gonisms are  due  to  their  non-religious  accidents, — namely 
to  their  personifications,  now  known  as  deities. 

The  God  in  which  most  of  us  have  been  taught  to  believe 
was  at  first  the  name,  afterwards  the  personification,  of  a 
group  of  natural ;  henomena ;  then  it  became  the  figure- 
head of  an  ancient  cosmogony ;  and  thence  it  was 
translated  into  a  related  theological  system.     Being  the 


ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 


most  important  factor  of  tliat  theological  system,  it  has 
naturally  sui-vived  the  crumbling  of  the  rest  of  the  system  ; 
but,  however  strong  it  may  be,  if  that  God  be  really  a 
survival,  one  fragment  of  a  system  whose  other  parts  have 
become  discredited,  its  own  disappearance  is  only  a 
question  of  time. 

The  world  has  had  a  long  experience  in  this  matter. 
In  the  theology  of  our  Hindoo  ancestors  there  is  inti- 
mation of  a  supreme  deity  anterior  even  to  Brahm,  but 
now  Brahm  himself  has  been  so  superseded  that  he  is  at 
most  an  honorary  deity.  Scholars  have  often  remarked 
on  the  fact  that  there  exists  no  temple  to  Brahm,  but 
they  have  not  so  generally  noted  the  parallel  fact  that 
there  is  no  Christian  Church  specially  dedicated  to  God, 
none  to  Jehovah,  none,  I  believe,  even  to  the  Father. 
The  later  deities  supersede  the  old. 

A  friend  of  mine  residing  in  a  French  town  told  me 
this  story.  The  festival  of  the  Sacrament  is  called  there 
the  Fete  de  Dieu — the  Feast  of  God  (our  Corpus  Christi). 
My  friend  having  asked  a  sempstress  if  she  could  come 
and  work  on  that  day,  the  woman  replied,  "  Ah  no  ;  it  is  the 
Feast  of  God,  and  he  ought  to  have  one  day  in  the  year  for 
himself,  poor  dear  !  "  We  have  in  that  compassionate 
"  poor  dear  ! "  the  probable  explanation  of  the  absence  of 
any  temple  either  in  India  or  Europe  named  for  the  first 
{xjrson  in  the  Trinity  of  either. 

Each  of  them  was  an  original  tribal  deity.  He  reflected 
the  local  environment,  the  ideas,  the  particular  hopes  of 
a  people.  Political  changes,  migrations,  the  union  of 
provinces,  bring  together  such  tribal  deities.     They  come 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


to  a  compromise  sharing  an  equal  dignity ;  so  forming  a 
triad,  a  trinity,  an  Olympian  circle,  of  which  each  indi- 
vidual can  be  traced  back  to  its  provincial  origin.  But 
real  equality  is  as  impossible  among  gods  us  among  races. 
The  earlier,  the  more  barbarian  deity,  representing  a  less 
advanced  race,  may  preserve  the  most  ancient  and 
honoured  title  ;  but  the  growing,  the  more  modern  world, 
will  be  represented  by  deities  more  adapted  to  new  ideas 
and  circumstances.  This  newer  from  may,  indeed,  be  at 
first  a  mediator  between  the  old  and  the  new,  an  adapter, 
an  intercessor,  but  he — or  she  — will  gradually  supersede 
the  original  deity.  So  Vishnu  and  Siva  superseded  Brahm  ; 
Zeus  superseded  Saturn,  and  Bacchus,  Zeus;Thor  super- 
seded Odin ;  the  Father  superseded  Jehovah,  Jesus  the 
Father,  and  in  some  countries  Mary  has  almost  superseded 
Jesus.  And  all  this  despite  the  utmost  efforts  of  each 
tribe  or  race  to  modify  and  adapt  its  deity  to  the  new 
circumstances  and  improved  ideas. 

The  difficulty  that  proved  fatal  to  their  god  in  each 
case  was  precisely  the  difficulty  which  besets  the  like 
efforts  now.  Their  god  was  born  out  of  a  certain  set  of 
circumstances,  reflected  a  system  of  beliefs  ;  when  these 
crumbled  away  he  survived,  but  could  not  survive  for 
ever.  The  system  of  belief  was  the  habitat  of  its  god 
whose  limits  he  could  not  overpass.  Like  Tithonos  who 
received  the  gift  of  immortality,  the  primitive  god 
received  not  the  gift  of  perpetual^ youth  :  Tithonos, 
shrivelled  with  age,  was  at  last  compassionately  changed 
to  a  grasshopper  ;  and  of  many  ancient  deities  all  we  now 
hear  is  a  tithonic  chirp. 


ANIHR  OPOMORPHISM. 


The  growth,  maturity,  old  age,  and  dotage  of  the 
ancient  gods  represents  the  opening  and  closing  of  one 
great  epoch  of  anthropomorphism,— an  epoch  in  whose 
deities  were  reflected  not  only  the  passions  and  powers  of 
men,  but  even,  toalarge  extent,  their  physical  conformation. 
Even  after  they  ceased  to  be  thought  of  as  occasionally 
visible,  the  beautiful  brow  of  one,  the  eyes  of  another 
the  hair  of  a  third,  were  pictured  in  poetry  and  art. 

II. 

But  the  world  entered  on  an  age  of  philosophy.  Thought 
set  itself  to  the  task  of  comprehending  and  explaining 
the  universe,  and  generalising  its  phenomena  to  an  order 
for  the  intellect.  This  new  age  expressed  itself  in  atheism 
which  selected  from  the  previous  theisms  so  much  as 
seemed  to  be  recjuired  to  account  for  the  origin  and 
existence  of  Nature.  It  ended,  of  course,  in  negation. 
Lucretius  saw  its  weakness  as  clearly  as  Tyndall.  It  lay 
in  the  assumption  that  there  had  been  a  creation.  Nobody 
had  any  right  to  assume  that  there  ever  was  a  period  when 
nothing  existed.  And  even  if  that  were  granted  the 
demand  for  a  cause  was  interminable  :  each  cause  when 
reached  requiring  reference  to  a  further  cause,  ad  infini- 
tum. 

The  deity  first  called  up  by  the  vain  effort  to  reach  a 
final  cause  for  the  universe  was  an  anthropomorphic  deity. 
That  is,  it  was  based  upon  the  notion  of  an  immense 
exertion  of  power  of  the  kind  that  man  puts  forth  in  a 
small  way,  whenever  he  produces  anything.     Nor  was  the 


124  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

First  Cause  less  anthropomorphic,  or  manlike,  if  it  were 
said  that  the  universe  was  begotten  by  God  or  emanated 
from  him.     These  also  were  human  analogies. 

Then  arose  the  philosophical  theism  which  based  itself 
upon  contrivance  in  nature,  the  evidences  of  intelligence 
and  skill.  This  indeed  underlay  the  earliest  theism,  but 
it  was  then  able  to  command  belief,  because  there  was 
not  yet  that  craving  for  unity  which  is  the  soul  of  phi- 
losophy. Nature  is  so  full  of  apparent  contradictions 
that  various  contrivers  had  to  be  imagined,  and  that  was 
easy  to  the  polytheists  ;  but  philosophy  rebelHng  against 
the  idea  of  a  swarm  of  deities  with  contrarious  powers  and 
aims  was  soon  puzzled  to  reconcile  good  and  evil  designs. 
There  is  a  story  of  a  clergyman  who,  walking-  with  his  son, 
pointed  out  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  God  as  illustrated 
in  a  crane  wading  near  them,  the  soft  folding  and  unfold- 
ing of  its  long  legs  without  causing  a  ripple  to  startle  the 
fish,  and  its  long  slender  bill  so  admirably  shaped  for 
fishing.  The  lad  recognised  the  goodness  of  God  to  the 
crane  ;  "  but,  father,"  he  said,  "  isn't  the  arrangement  a 
little  tough  on  the  fish  ? "  The  clergyman  told  his  son 
that  his  difficulty  was  a  suggestion  of  the  devil.  In  one 
sense  it  certainly  was  :  the  mental  growth  of  a  child 
repeats  in  an  embryonic  way  the  mental  history  of  the 
race,  and  it  was  precisely  in  that  boy's  difficulty  that  the 
notion  of  a  devil  was  born.  The  crane  side  of  the  pro- 
ceeding showed  the  good  contriver,  the  fish  side  the  bad 
contriver.  The  presence  of  pain  in  the  world  was  fatal 
to  the  argument  from  design  :  if  it  proved  any  deity  at  all 
it  proved  two  at  least.     And  there  it  has  logically  ended 


ANTHROPOMORPHISM.  125 

in  the  great  theologies  of  the  world,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  Science  and  Philosophy  abandon  the  problem 
altogether  as  relating  to  supposed  matters  for  whose 
verification  the  human  mind  has  no  corresponding 
faculties. 

So  perished  the  anthropomorphic  deities  of  philosophy, 
— the  first-cause  god,  the  contriving  god,—  following  their 
Olympian  predecessors. 


III. 


Monotheism,  in  a  strict  sense,  has  never  been  the  creed 
of  any  popular  or  historical  religion.  The  reduction  of 
supernatural  powers  to  subordination  under  three  persons, 
whose  several  tasks  imply  the  duality  of  god  and  devil, 
has  simplified  the  problem  of  theism  but  has  not  ma- 
terially advanced  it  towards  solution.  So  far  as  this  is 
concerned  we  are  very  much  in  the  same  position  as 
were  the  rationalists  under  whose  scepticism  the  gods 
and  goddesses  of  Greece  vanished  eighteen  hundred  years 
ago,  when  the  popular  divinities,  like  those  of  our  own 
time,  could  only  be  defended  by  denunciations  of  those 
who  denied  them. 

In  Ft-aser's  Magazine  (October,  1876),  Mr.  James 
Anthony  Froude  has  written  an  admirable  paper  on 
Lucian,  in  whose  works  he  finds  reflected  "  The  Twilight  of 
the  Gods  "  of  Paganism,  which  is  a  mirror  wherein  most  of 
our  nineteenth  century  theology  may  behold  its  own 
features.  Lucian  was  born  near  Antioch  and  wrote  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  second  century  after  Christ.     He 


126  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

looked  upon  the  decaying  superstitions  of  the  Greek  and 
Roman  pantheon,  and  the  growing  superstitions  of 
Christians,  pretty  much  as  our  philosophic  thinkers  now 
look  upon  the  dogmas  of  orthodoxy  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  theories  of  spiritualism  on  the  other.  In  his  Zei;? 
rpaywSos  the  scene  opens  in  heaven,  where  the  deities, 
finding  their  chief,  Zeus,  in  grief  and  agitation,  question 
him  as  to  the  cause.  Zeus  relates  sadly  that  he  had  been 
listening  to  a  controversy  in  Athens  between  two  dis- 
putants, Damis  the  Epicurean,  and  Timocles  the  Stoic, 
before  a  large  and  distinguished  audience,  on  the  nature 
of  Providence.  Damis  affirmed  that  the  gods  had  no 
existence,  or  at  any  rate  no  influence  on  human  affairs  : 
and  though  Timocles  pleaded  for  the  gods  furiously, 
Zeus  declared  his  arguments  were  weak,  the  listeners 
generally  on  the  side  of  Damis,  and,  unless  something 
were  done,  they  (the  gods)  would  become  mere  names 
and  their  altars  ruins. 

Upon  these  grave  tidings  the  deities  hold  solemn 
conclave,  and  among  others  who  give  their  opinion  is 
Momus,  who  frankly  avows  that  he  cannot  blame  the  philo- 
sophers who  pick  holes  in  them.  "  What  other  conclusions 
could  they  arrive  at,"  he  asks,  "when  they  saw  the  con- 
fusion around  them?  Good  men  neglected,  perishing  in 
penury  or  slavery ;  and  profligate  wretches  wealthy, 
honoured,  and  powerful.  Let  us  be  candid.  All  that  we 
have  really  cared  for  has  been  a  steady  altar-service. 
All  else  has  been  left  to  chance.  And  now  men  are 
opening  their  eyes.  They  perceive  that  whether  they 
pray  or  don't  pray,  go  to  church  or  don't  go  to  church. 


A  NTIIK  OrOMORPHISM.  j  2  7 

makes  no  difference  to  them,"  Moinus  is  rebuked  for 
his  rudeness,  but  the  question  remains,  what  is  to  be 
done  ?  In  the  end  they  all  repair  to  the  place  where 
Damis  and  Timccles  have  engaged  to  renew  their 
contest.  As  they  arrive,  their  advocate  Timocles  says 
to  Damis — 

What !  you  blasphemous  villain,  you  !  you  don't 
believe  in  the  gods  and  in  Providence  ? 

Damis. — I  neither  believe  nor  disbelieve.  I  wait  your 
reasons  why  I  should  have  a  positive  opinion  about  it. 

Timocles. — I  will  give  you  no  reasons,  you  wretch  ! 
Give  me  your's  for  your  atheism.  ,£^ 

Zeus. — Our  man  is  doing  well.     He  has  the  rudest^Jii^ 
manner  and  the  loudest  voice.     Well  done,  Timocles  X 
give  him  hard  words.     That  is  your  strong  point.     Begin 
to  reason  and  you  will  be  as  dumb  as  a  fish. 

But  the  advocate  of  the  gods  is  presently  compelled  to 
give  his  reasons.  He  argues  from  design  and  order  in 
nature,  but  Damis  tells  him  he  assumes  design  and  order 
where  there  may  be  none.  Timocles  next  says  he 
believes  in  the  gods  because  Homer  did.  Damis  wants 
to  know  whether  he  also  believes  as  Homer  relates,  that 
Zeus,  to  reward  Thetis,  cheated  Agamemnon  with  a  false 
dream,  which  led  to  the  destruction  of  tens  of  thousands. 
Timocles  then  appeals  to  the  common  belief  of  mankind  ; 
but  Damis  reminds  him  that  one  tribe  worships  a  bull, 
another  a  crocodile,  a  third  a  dog-headed  ape,  and  asks 
if  these  are  the  foundations  of  theology.  Finall}',  Timocles 
argues  that  as  there  are  altars  there  must  be  gods. 
Whereupon  Damis  laughs  and  says  that  they  can  contend 


128  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

no  longer,  since  he  hangs  the  existence  of  gods  on  the 
existence  of  altars.  "  You  have  taken  refuge  at  the 
altar  as  men  do  in  extremities." 

Timodes. — Oh,  oh  !  you  are  sarcastic,  are  you  !  you 
gravedigger  !  you  wretch  !  you  abomination  !  you  gaol- 
bird !  you  cesspool !  we  know  where  you  come  from  ; 
your  mother  was  a  whore  ;  and  you  killed  your  brother 
and  seduced  your  friend's  wife  ;  you  are  an  adulterer,  a 
Sodomite,  a  glutton  and  a  beast.  Stay  till  I  can  thrash 
you.     Stay,  I  say,  villain,  abhorred  villain  ! 

Zeus. —  One  has  gone  off  laughing,  and  the  other  follows 
railing  and  throwing  tiles  at  him.  Well,  what  are  we  to 
do? 

Hermes. — The  old  play  says,  "You  are  not  hurt  if 
you  don't  acknowledge  it."  Suppose  a  few  people  have 
gone  away  believing  in  Damis,  what  then?  A  great 
many  more  believe  the  reverse ;  the  whole  mass  of 
ignorant  Greeks  and  the  barbarians  everywhere. 

Zeus. — True,  Hermes,  but  that  was  a  good  thing  which 

Darius  said  about  Zopyrus,    "  I  had  rather  have   one 

Zopyrus  than  a  thousand  Babylons." 

(        In  this  ancient  fragmentwe  find  all  the  arguments  for  the 

J  existence  of  a  deity  stated  with  which  we  are  familiar, — de- 

)  sign,  authority  of  the  ancients,  authority  of  great  men,  the 

/  common  beliefs  of  mankind.     And  when  all  these  are  met 

^and  refuted  as  they  have  been  in  our  day  by  the  precise 

arguments  of  Damis,  we  are  unhappily  still  familiar  with 

the  final  argument — taking  refuge  at  the  altar  and  hurHng 

epithets  and  slanders  against  the  man  who   denies  its 

authority  over  reason.      How   was  VoUaire   answered? 


ANTHROPOMORPHISM.  129. 

Accused  of  vices.     How  was  Thomas  Paine  answered  ? 
Charged  with  all  manner  of  wickednesses.     Have  our 
theologians  got  any  better  argument  to-day  ?     In  some      / 
enlightened   centres  those   who  disbelieve   the   popular  / 
idols  may  escape  slander  and  abuse  if  they  keep  well  to. 
their  own  audiences,  or  write  in  a  high  philosophical  way 
that  does  not  reach  the  masses  ;  but  if  they  come  into  the 
popular  arena  the  argument  is  still  apt  to  end  as  it  has  / 
against   Mr.  Bradlaugh,  who  has  had  to  defend  himself 
several  times  in  the  courts  against  the  personal  charges 
heaped  upon  him,  and  of  which  he  has  proved  himself 
innocent, — slanders  like  those  against  Damis,  resorted  to 
in  lieu  of  any  real  arguments  to  prove  the  existence  of  the 
traditional  and  conventional  deities. 

But  all  such  wrath  directed  against  a  man  in  reply  to 
honestly-reasoned  convictions  are  signs  and  confessions 
of  a  dying  or  dead  belief?^  Personalities  never  rise  till 
arguments  fail.  Thinking  men  who  have  listened  to  the 
denunciations  heaped  upon  such  men  as  Tyndall  can 
only  echo  the  thought  attributed  to  Zeus  when  Hermes 
would  console  him  by  the  reflection  that  the  great  ignorant 
mass  still  believed  in  him  though  Damis  did  not :  "  I 
had  rather  have  one  Zopyrus  than  ten  thousand  Babylons." 
It  would  be  worth  more  to  the  religion  of  England  to 
possess  the  confidence  of  one  Tyndall  than  that  of  ten 
thousand  ignorant  believers,  and  the  retained  advocates 
interested  to  foster  their  blindness  and  encourage  their 
superstition. 


130  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


IV. 


As  philosophy  surrenders  the  problem  of  the  divine 
existence,  religious  sentiment  has  taken  it  up.  What  we 
have  for  some  years  been  calling  "  pure  theism  "  was  the 
first  result.  It  accepted  the  verdict  of  philosophy  in  large 
part ;  that  is,  it  met  the  problem  of  pain  and  evil  in 
the  world  by  pronouncing  the  word  "  unknown,"  if 
not  "  unknowable."  But  on  the  other  hand  it  eagerly 
seized  on  all  the  beauty  and  joy  of  the  world,  and 
recognised  in  these  the  presence  of  wisdom  and  love. 
Its  very  heart  was  optimism.  It  said,  so  far  as  we' 
know  all  is  well;  when  we  know  more  of  what  now 
seems  evil,  no  doubt  we  shall  find  that  to  be  also 
good.  It  was  not  the  necessity  of  this  moral  theism  to 
affirm  a  beginning  of  the  universe,  nor  a  creator  or  great 
heavenly  mechanic ;  all  it  wanted  was  a  moral  being,  a 
sacred  living  ideal  to  be  loved  and  adored.  This  marks 
an  enormous  distance  of  our  present  theism  from  any 
theology  of  the  past.  In  all  history  we  do  not  find  an 
instance  where  any  one  has  been  persecuted  for  attributing 
wickedness  to  any  god  or  gods.  Tens  of  thousands  have 
suffered  for  denying  their  existence,  or  for  novel  defini- 
tions concerning  their  form,  essence,  and  mode  of  exist- 
ence ;  but  the  gods  have  been  freely  associated  with  every 
baseness,  from  murder  and  lust  to  jealousy  and  wrath,  and 
no  one  was  ever  troubled  for  holding  such  opinions  about 
them.  Perhaps  it  would  be  too  much  to  say  our  modern 
theism  has  entirely  reversed  this,  for  it  is  to  be  feared  that 


ANTIIR  OrOMORrillSM. 


many  theists  would  even  yel  fraternise  with  a  clergyman 
who  believes  God  capable  of  torturing  human  beings  in 
hell,  rather  than  with  a  man  who  denies  God's  existence. 
But  though,  for  a  time  yet,  the  atheist  may  hardly  fare  so 
well  among  theists  as  the  Calvinist,  the  tendency  is  to  give 
up  even  so  much  anthropomorphism  as  lies  in  that  feeling. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  perceive  that  any  god  who  personally 
cares  what  men  think  of  him,  or  who  is  concerned  whether 
his  existence  is  believed  in  or  not  by  mortals,  is  only  a 
man, — and  rather  a  narrow-minded  man  too ;  for  a  sensible 
man  would  hardly  feel  insulted  if  he  heard  that  some  one 
doubted  his  existence.  A  deity  personally  interested  in\ 
such  things  belongs  to  a  theology  whose  tomb  he  must! 
ultimately  share.  At  the  same  time  it  is  perfectly  con-  f' 
sistent  for  one  to  oppose  atheism  as  an  evil  without  fancyingl 
it  a  sin.  AVe  may  regard  it  as  injurious  to  man  without 
dreaming  that  it  is  an  offence  either  to  man  or  God. 


V. 

The  ascription  of  personality  to  the  deity  also  represents 
a  lingering  anthropomorphism  :  to  what  degree,  depends 
upon  the  exactness  or  vagueness  with  which  the  term 
"  personality  "  is  conceived.  Of  course  man  can  not  have 
an  idea  of  any  personality  but  his  own,  however  this  may  be 
idealised.  All  modern  theists  divest  this  personality  of  its 
coarser  attributes,  when  ascribing  it  to  a  deity.  Nay, 
even  barbarians  have  not  called  any  god  by  a  personal 
name.  The  names  of  ancient  gods  are  those  of  the 
elements,  the  day,  the  sun,  time,  the  sky,  or  space ;  and  no 


132  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

tribe  seems  to  be  so  low  as  to  give  personal  names  to  their 
gods — as  it  might  be  William  or  Henry.  But  individual 
names  are  symbols  of  personal  interests  ;  it  seems  of  the 
very  essence  of  our  personality  that  we  should  have  a 
private  history  distinguishing  us  from  all  others.  No 
theist  can  think  of  the  deity  as  personal  in  that  way, — as 
having  a  pedigree  and  private  interests,  concerns  separate 
from  the  universe.  Doubtless  the  vast  majority  of 
educated  theists  have  eliminated  these  main  elements  of 
a  human  personality,  and  have  taken  its  higher  manifesta- 
tions as  attributes  of  the  deity, — Power,  Will,  Intelligence, 
Consciousness,  Love.  Now  these  things  are,  in  their 
obvious  sense,  known  to  us  only  as  qualities  of  man, 
and  as  reflectmg  the  limitations  of  man.  We  can  conceive 
of  power  and  will  only  as  overcoming  resistance,  and  to 
personify  them  in  a  good  god  implies  the  recognition  of 
a  power  opposing  him.  Intelligence  is  the  perpetual 
contrivance  of  an  imperfect  being  to  adapt  itself  to  its 
environment.  Consciousness  is  the  result  of  an  apparatus 
connecting  a  limited  nature  through  senses  with  external 
objects,  and  possible  only  under  changes  in  the  relation 
to  those  objects.  (We  are  not  conscious  of  the  weight 
of  the  atmosphere,  vast  as  it  is,  because  it  is  unchanging, 
nor  of  the  motion  of  our  earth,  swift  as  it  is  :  we  become 
conscious  of  a  thing  by  comparing  it  with  a  different 
thing,  as  if  the  earth's  motion  should  cease  we  would 
become  conscious  of  it  by  comparison  of  its  stillness  with 
the  previous  motion.)  If  we  attribute  such  sensations  to 
God  we  invest  him  with  our  own  imperfections  :  his  con- 
sciousness, for  instance,  would  mean  that  he   becomes 


ANTHROPOMORPHISM.  133 

aware  of  something  he  did  not  know  before.  Shall  we  say 
''God  loves  us?"  Love,  in  that  sense,  is  a  human  attribute : 
it  represents  the  Ionising  of  a  limited  nature  for  something 
it  lacks  ;  or  the  cleaving  to  another  needed  for  its  own 
completeness.  " (fj[^  jW^C^W^^^  Q&^ 

These  facts  confirm  the  words  of  Spinoza  :  "  To  define  / 

God  is  to  deny  him."  Every  personification  of  the  deity 
is  an  attempt  to  define  him.  It  has  been  tried  through 
many  thousands  of  years,  and  with  one  result.  The 
personification  of  one  age  represents  the  highest  con- 
ception of  that  age,  but  becomes  a  low  conception  to 
following  ages.  If  the  loyalty  of  that  earlier  age  had 
gathered  about  an  impersonal  ideal,  that  ideal  might  grow 
with  the  intellectual  and  moral  growth  of  the  world.  But 
when  the  ideal  is  personified,  popular  loyalty  is  divided 
between  the  nioral  quality  and  the  person  :  the  personality 
inspires  awe  and  fear — which  the  abstract  ideal  does  not — 
and  he  continues  to  receive  allegiance  after  his  character 
represents  only  a  discredited  ideal.-^  Many  a  kind  woman 
and  just  man  now  worships  a  being  neither  just  nor  kind, 
an  image  inferior  to  themselves.  Their  loyalty  is  divided 
between  the  moral  ideal  alone  worthy  of  worship,  and  an 
ancient  personification  of  what  once  seemed  moral  but  is 
now  immoral, — simply  because  that  personification  was  , 
girt  about  with  will,  power,  self-esteem  and  other  mena- 
cing characteristics  essential  to  personality. 

Have  we  reason  to  hope  more  for  our  own  personifica- 
tions ?  Can  we  be  sure  that  any  personality  imagined  to- 
day will  give  our  descendents  less  trouble  than  Jehovah 
has  given  us  ?    Will  it  not  bind  the  growing  ideal  if  in  the 


134  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

future  great  institutions,  churches,  property  are  under 
tenure  of  the  Theos  of  our  present  theism,  who  will  so 
',  be  enabled  to  fortify  himself  against  the  more  enlightened 
views  of  our  own  liberal  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  future  ? 
It  was  the  old  argument  of  Liberalism  that  the  acceptance 
of  a  mediator  made  him  a  veil  between  the  soul  and  God  ; 
can  anything  else  be  said  of  any  personality  that  is  brought 
between  the  soul  and  the  pure  ideal  ? 

VI. 

''Now,  I  do  not  think  that  the  word  "God"  necessarily 
carries  with  it  the  idea  of  personality,  any  more  than 
gravitation  personifies  what  it  stands  for.  There  are  in 
nature  certain  facts  beyond  which  we  cannot  get, — 
electricity,  attraction,  motion.  We  must  have  words  for 
them,  but  no  such  word  is  explanatory.  Electricity 
names  a  phenomenon,  but  does  not  pretend  to  account 
for  it.  There  are  phenomena,  which  to  me  appear  to 
represent  a  principle  in  nature  quite  as  definite  as 
electricity,  and  I  call  it  "God."  I  may  be  told  that  most, 
people  associate  a  personality  with  the  word  "God ;  "  va^II 
for  a  long  time  men  personified  Electron,  and  yet  we 
have  to  use  it.  The  use  of  language  is  to  be  understood. 
Words  are  conventional ;  they  are  not  substitutes  for 
philosophical  definition.  If  I  speak  of"  sunset  "  no  one 
has  a  right  to  suppose  I  believe  the  sun  sits  down.  Now, 
;it  may  be  that  what  Carlyle  once  spoke  of  to  a  friend,  as 
"  the  long  paraphrase  which  we  shorten  in  the  word  God," 
will  some  day  be  better  expressed.     But  at  present  I  da 


ANTHROPOMORPHISM.  135 

not  know  any  other  word  which  can  make  us  understood 
when  we  mean  that  sacred  influence  which  is  the  main 
fact  of  our  inward  life.  Every  experience  must  seek  its 
expression,  and,  thus  far,  of  all  the  terms  for  the  ideal 
elements  within  and  without  us  which  denote  their  reality, 
the  word  "  God  "  appears  to  me  the  least  daring,  the  least 
descriptive,  while  popularly  it  suggests  the  Good. 
Moreover,  as  no  sect  can  monopolise  the  word  "  religion," 
none  can  so  degrade  the  word  "  God : "  even  when 
personalised  it  must  be  in  a  generic  sense,  and  can  not, 
— like  Jehovah,  Vishnu,  Trinity,  Allah, — be  made  the 
figure-head  of  any  cosmogony,  sect,  or  special  set  of 
superstitions.  It  must  become  an  increasingly  impersonal 
expression  by  the  very  necessity  of  being  detached  from 
the  several  personified  patron-deities  of  the  various  races. 
When  the  great  Religion  of  Man  has  come  this  term  will 
necessarily  stand — as  it  stands  now  in  the  pages  of 
Goethe,  Carlyle,  Emerson,  and  many  poets — for  the  in- 
definable but  majestic  supremacy  of  perfect  and  eternal 
principles  ;  for  their  unity,  universality,  and  harmony  ; 
for  their  superlative  glory  in  all  things  fair  and  grand, 
and  the  passionate  love  and  longing  they  awaken  in  the 
breast  of  man. 

Though  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  God  "  is  lost  in 
antiquity,  its  survival  confesses  that  not  one  step  has 
been  gained  towards  explanation  since  that  word  was 
coined  in  the  immemorial  past.  In  that  great  lapse 
of  time  the  religious  aspiration  of  man  has  survived 
the  decay  of  many  personal  deities  :  men  thought  it  could 
not  continue  without  a  visible  deity  with  quite  as  mucli 


136  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

reason  as  some  now  think  it  must  perish  without  some 
personification  ;  but  they  did  then,  they  do  now,  under- 
estimate the  imperishable  vitahty  of  the  moral  and 
religious  nature  of  man.  It  is  precisely  that  which  cannot 
fail  with  any  form  or  formula  :  it  grows  by  their  decay. 
It  outsoars  all  definitions.  It  comprehends  all  beautiful 
things  and  is  comprehended  by  and  in  none  of  them. 
And  when  all  our  speculations  are  forgotten,  or  have 
become  subjects  of  archaeological  interest,  like  those  of 
Ptolemy  or  Hermes,  those  who  come  after  us  will  still  be 
chanting  with  the  Persian  Sadi,  "O  thou  that  towerest 
above  the  heights  of  imagination,  thought,  or  conjecture, 
surpassing  all  that  we  have  heard  or  read,  the  banquet  is 
ended,  the  assembly  dismissed,  and  life  draws  to  a  close, 
and  we  still  rest  in  our  first  encomium  of  thee  !  " 

But  here  I  may  be  reminded  that  in  speaking  of  "  in- 
fluence "  I  am  using  an  anthropomorphic  expression.  It 
is  indeed  a  word  of  human  associations,  and  it  is  conceded 
that  if  we  report  anything  in  language  at  all  it  must  be 
in  terms  derived  from  human  experience.  But  it  is  not 
against  any  word,  but  against  a  thing  that  I  contend.  If 
one  speaks  of  the  deity  as  "  Father,"  it  may  be  a  simple  ex- 
pression of  the  heart,  as  if  he  had  said  "  Love  ;  "  but  if 
the  same  individual  shrinks  from  varying  the  phrase  to 
"  Mother  "  it  can  only  be  because  the  word  "  Father  " 
has  become  representative  of  some  anthropomorphic 
conception.  If  we  mean  anything  whatever  by  the  word 
"  God  "  it  must  at  least  be  what  is  most  exalted  in  our 
own  human  conception,  but  it  may  be  without  the  limi- 
tations of  that  conception.     Thus,  it  is  anthropomorphic 


ANTHROPOMORPHISM.  137 

to  say  "  God  loves,"  for  to  love  is  the  act  of  man  ;  not  so 
to  say  "  God  is  Love,"  for  we  can  have  no  idea  of  a  man 
who  is  love.  To  say  "  God  knows  "  is  anthropomorphic  ; 
not  so  to  say  "  God  is  Wisdom."  When  Jesus  said  "  God 
is  a  spirit  " — in  his  own  sense  of  a  viewless  influence, 
whose  effect  we  feel  as  we  do  the  breath  of  the  wind, 
while  we  cannot  tell  whence  it  cometh  or  whither  it 
goeth — he  raised  the  mind  above  every  anthropomorphic 
conception,  to  the  pure  elemental  realm  of  ideal  and 
moral  existence. 

It  has  become  the  custom  to  label  everybody  with  a 
party-name,  and  they  who  refuse  to  personify  God  are 
called  Agnostics, — a  word  meaning  one  who  does  not 
know,  but  often  held  to  designate  one  who  worships 
the  Unknowable.  But  for  myself  I  decline  to  affirm 
that  anything  is  unknowable.  Nor  do  I  worship  the 
Unknown.  What  I  worship  is  my  ideal,  as  perfect  as  I 
can  make  it.  Love,  Reason,  Right,  Beauty  are  blended 
and  consummate  in  it.  In  what  mode  or  modes  these 
subsist  in  the  universe  none  can  know,  but  it  is  not  my 
ignorance  that  I  worship  ;  it  is  the  ideal  which  I  do 
know,  though  knowing  not  the  metaphysics  of  it. 

But  is  all  this  real  ?  Is  there  in  the  universe  any  reason 
apart  from  the  brain  of  man,  or  any  principle  of  love 
beyond  that  manifested  in  the  human  heart  ?  For  myself 
I  cannot  doubt  that  there  are  in  nature  these  supreme 
elements,  which  make  and  mould  us  rather  than  we 
them. 

There  is  in  nature  an  evolutional  order,  a  geometry,  a 
mathematical  uniformity,  by  which  are  built   the  worlds 


138'  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

and  the  cells  of  bees,  and  which  make  possible  the 
sciences  of  man.  Upon  man  the  universal  laws  are 
comjjulsory  :  no  vote  of  majorities  can  alter  them,  no 
individual  will  set  them  aside.  Human  culture  means 
their  recognition,  and  human  wisdom  means  instinctive 
obedience  to  them.  In  the  wilds  of  Africa  and  in  the 
Bank  of  England  alike,  two  and  two  make  four;  and 
though  the  interests  of  a  nation  might  conceivably  lead 
it  to  enact  that  two  and  two  make  five  the  laws  of 
number  and  relation  would  crush  them.  Reason  is  a 
principle  in  nature  which  reaches  consciousness  in  man, 
but  it  does  not  grow  into  existence  through  man ;  for 
man's  growth  is  an  ascension  to  an  inward  harmony 
with  it,  in  place  of  that  coercion  by  it  which,  in  his  lower 
condition,  he  shares  with  plant  and  animal. 

Love  exists  in  nature.  It  is  the  principle  of  progress, 
and  to  believe  in  jDrogress  is  to  believe  in  God.  Recog- 
nising as  highest  within  us  the  attraction  of  the  best,  and 
individual  growth  as  its  expression,  we  look  forth  upon 
the  world  and  discern  a  like  law  operative  there.  Life 
has  journeyed  from  the  zoophyte  to  Shakspere.  Ait  has 
journeyed  from  a  naked  savage  swimming  across  his  river 
on  a  log  to  a  civilised  man  crossing  the  ocean  in  a 
floating  palace  ;  from  the  scrawled  picture-letter  to  the 
cartoon  of  Raphael.  Humanity  has  journeyed  from  the 
normal  war  of  nomadic  savages  to  courts  of  law, 
arbitration,  and  social  comity.  Honesty  has  become 
the  best  policy.  The  peaceful  more  and  more  inherit 
ine  earth ;  animal  and  human  ferocities  pass  away, 
gentleness  and   benefit  survive  and  increase.     Evermore 


ANTHROPOMORPHISM.  J  39 


a  progress  towards  the  better  !  Why  is  this  movement 
not  backward?  Why  has  not  there  been  a  steady 
survival  of  the  morally  unfittest  ?  Why  should  there  not 
have  gone  on  a  steady  growth  of  the  slave-trade,  a  multi- 
plication of  slaves,  an  advance  in  Russia  to  double  the 
extent  of  that  serfdom  which  has  been  abolished  ?  Why 
has  not  dishonesty  become  the  best  policy  ?  Why  this 
phenomenon  of  a  totality  ever  moving  onward  not  back- 
ward, even  the  decays  of  this  or  that  fragmentary  and 
partial  civilisation  followed  invariably  by  a  finer  com- 
bination, and  so  contributing  to  swell  the  general  impulse 

upward  ? 

Some  theolog-ical  theists  appear  inclined  to  smile  at 
Mr..  Matthew  Arnold's  reverential  homage  to  a  "  stream 
of  tendency,"  nevertheless  it  is  in  that  ark  that  Faith  is 
to  float  past  the  deluge  of  scepticism  and  denial.  For  that 
stream  of  tendency  is  a  stream  of  love,  and  it  must  needs 
pass  through  mysteries  of  iniquity,  pain,  seeming  chaos. 
As  we  stand  on  its  banks  we  look  forth  and  see  the 
cyclone  in  India  with  its  two  hundred  thousand  mortals 
cut  down  in  a  moment,  as  it  were  mere  weeds  under  a 
scythe.  What  recourse  has  Faith,  but  to  believe  the 
Ages  against  the  Hour  as  they  attest  the  power  that 
makes  for  righteousness,  abandoning  the  whole  problem 
of  the  Why  which  a  discredited  metaphysic  has  foisted 
upon  the  religious  sentiment  ? 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  if  we  could  certainly  discern 
in  nature  or  in  history  any  stream  of  tendency  which 
makes  for  evil  or  wrong,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
believe    in   any  deity   worthy    our   reverence.      But  in 


J40  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

contradiction  to  the  established  demon-worship  around 
us  with  its  plain  antitheistical  dogmas  of  a  personal  devil, 
or  an  evil  principle  in  the  universe,  with  an  eternity 
equal  to  the  good,  Science  itself  has  come  to  prove  that 
every  pang  in  nature  has  been  a  spur  of  improvement 
and  progress.  It  shows  untold  myriads  of  struggles  and 
agonies,  ferocities,  efforts  of  pursuit  and  escape,  summed 
up  into  all  the  forms  of  use  and  beauty  which  sur- 
round us. 

I  decline  to  theorise  about  the  ultimate  causes  and 
[absolute  nature  of  things,  because  I  find  no  powers  in 
myself  adequate  to  the  task.  But  it  is  not  theory  that 
tells  me  Love  exists  in  this  universe,  and  Reason,  and  in 
an  ideal  perfection  which  neither  individual  men  nor  all 
mankind  have  attained.  We  cannot  tell  how  they 
originated,  or  whether  they  originated,  or  their  mode 
and  relation,  or  why  they  do  not  prevail  over  the  evils  of 
the  world  instantly, — if  they  do  not !  We  cannot  com- 
prehend the  mystery  of  Love  and  Thought  in  our  own 
nature.  No  Franklin  has  yet  snatched  from  the  air  that 
finer  flame  which  spiritually  awakens  and  renews  the 
universe.  To  try  and  analyse  ourselves  to  find  a  soul  is 
like  digging  into  a  stone  to  discover  its  electricity.  We 
feel — and  why  shall  feeling  be  denied  its  weight  ? — that 
these  onward-drawing  forces,  these  longings  for  a  com- 
pleter life,  are  the  profoundest  realities  of  our  existence 
and  correspond  to  their  like  reality  in  the  universe. 

There  is  an  influence  beneath  which  mankind  must 
bend  as  trees  beneath  the  invisible  wind.  Sacred  ideals 
arise  and  overawe  our  lower  nature      We  can  not — we 


ANTHROPOMORPHISM.  141 

will  not — endure  the  thought  that  the  intimations  of  our 
immortality  mean  nothing,  because  they  mean  not  the 
egotism  of  the  vulgar,  and  that  the  promise  of  our 
heart  is  false.  While  we  muse  the  fire  burns.  Emotions 
ascend  and  life  struggles  to  ascend  with  them.  From  the 
fair  Kosmos  whence  we  have  derived  a  life — how  strange, 
undreamable  ! — that  is  real,  equally  have  we  derived 
ideals  and  cravings  that  seek  their  satisfaction  in  things 
invisible — in  moral  beauty,  self-forgetting  love,  the 
harmony  of  the  inward  and  outer  w^orlds  :  and  even  as  a 
seed  in  its  sod  may  feel  the  warm  quickening  touch  of 
the  sun  it  has  never  seen,  so  amid  the  darkness  of  the 
earth  the  heart  may  feel  stirring  within  the  mystical 
attraction  whose  nature  it  cannot  dream,  whose  sweetness 
seems  to  promise  a  far-off  flowering  into  joy. 


VIIT. 

THE  DREAM  OF  SOCRATES. 


THE     DREAM     OF     SOCRATES. 


wr»a|ANY  years  ago  I  went  to  hear  a  lecture  in 
^R  t  America  by  a  celebrated  spiritualist.  In  this 
■^^"'^1  lecture  he  gave  what  he  saw,  as  he  said,  in  a 
certain  trance,  the  geography  of  the  spiritual  world.  He 
described  a  realm  of  shining  ether,  populous  with  aerial 
and  luminous  forms  which  had  once  been  human  beings 
on  earth.  These  passed  hither  and  thither  along  path- 
ways, which  apparently  consisted  of  electrical  currents. 
Many  of  these  bright  beings  were  gathered  around  the 
forms  of  men  and  women  who,  having  died  on  earth, 
were  gradually  awakening  in  this  higher  world  ;  and  this 
realm  above  stretched  out  from  the  confines  of  the  earth, 
becoming  most  distinct  as  the  atmosphere  was  left 
behind.  Some  of  its  electrical  highroads  did  indeed 
intersect  the  air  and  impinge  upon  this  lower  earth,  and 
by  these  the  spiritual  beings  were  enabled  here  and  there 
to  descend  and  communicate  with  mortals. 

As  we  left  the  building  where  this  address  had  been 
delivered  by  the  famous  spiritualist — Andrew  Jackson 
Davis — I  well  remember  the  comments  which  many  of 

lO 


146  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

the  assembly  made  upon  it.  Nearly  all  said  that  the 
lecturer  was  quite  deranged,  that  he  certainly  ought  to  be 
in  a  lunatic  asylum.     Others  regarded  him  as  inspired. 

The  vision  was  a  (perhaps  unconscious)  travesty  of 
another  seen  by  one  of  the  wisest  of  men.  Nearly  2,500 
years  before  him,  Socrates,  while  waiting  for  the  hour  in 
which  he  was  to  drink  the  fatal  hemlock,  related  to  his 
friends  his  dream  of  the  upper  world  to  which  he  believed 
himself  about  to  pass.  Socrates  thought  of  the  universe 
as  one  great  realm,  of  which  this  lower  earth  was  a  mere 
floor.  He  said  the  higher  world  was  an  extension  of  this. 
There  are,  according  to  Socrates,  many  and  wonderful 
places  in  the  earth,  and  it  is  itself  neither  of  such  a  kind 
nor  magnitude  as  is  supposed.  We  who  here  inhabit  some 
small  portion  of  it,  dwell  as  frogs  in  a  marsh.  But  the 
pure  earth  is  situated  in  the  pure  heaven,  and  what  we 
call  the  world  is  but  the  sediment  at  the  bottom  of  it. 
As  any  creature  dwelling  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  may 
imagine  itself  on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  ignorant  of 
the  higher  forms  residing  on  continents,  so  we  imagine 
ourselves  on  the  surface,  and  are  equally  ignorant  of  the 
forms  dwelling  on  islands  and  continents  of  the  etherial 
world.  As  fishes  behold  the  sun  and  moon  through  the 
water,  we  behold  them  through  the  atmosphere.  We  are 
weighed  down  and  bound  to  the  bottom  of  this  atmo- 
spheric sea  by  our  grossness.  We  see  here  forms  which 
are  larger  than  those  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  more 
beautiful,  and  yet  similar, — for  in  the  sea  there  are  hills 
and  trees  and  flowers,  all  dwarfed  ;  but  ours  also  are 
dwarfs  corresponding  to  the  fairer  and  larger  growths  and 


THE  DREAM  OF  SOCRA  TES.  147 

scenes  of  the  real  surface  where  our  luminous  forms 
dwell.  Man  is  indeed  a  form  climbing  slowly  from  the 
lower  to  the  higher ;  he  has  got  a  first  foothold  on  the 
more  real  earth ;  and  by  the  study  of  philosophy  and 
purity  of  life  he  is  to  refine  his  senses,  evolve  higher 
organs,  which  will  fit  him  to  ascend  at  death  to  the  purer 
realm.  There  he  shall  find  seasons  of  a  purer  temper, 
admitting  of  no  disease.  He  shall  no  longer  as  here 
dwell  in  illusions,  but  see  things  as  they  are. 

When  the  sage  had  finished  his  discourse  Crito  said, 
"  How  shall  we  bury  you  ? "  "  Just  as  you  please  if 
you  can  only  get  hold  of  me,"  answered  Socrates,  with  a 
smile.  "  I  shall  not  remain  with  you,  but  depart."  At 
sunset  he  enjoined  his  children  and  pupils  .to  follow  virtue 
as  the  path  which  led  upward  to  the  immortals.  Then 
the  officer  proffered  the  poison  and  he  drank  it.  The 
rest  of  his  moments  he  employed  in  trying  to  console  his 
friends  who  were  far  more  sorrowful  than  he,  and  as  he 
died  his  last  words  were — "  Crito,  we  owe  a  cock  to 
^sculapius."  It  is  to  be  feared  that  these  last  words 
show  that  superstition  survived  even  in  that  great  mind, 
though  one  would  fain  rationalise  it,  and  find  therein  only 
an  expression  of  his  obligation  to  the  genius  of  health, 
the  divine  physician.  The  dying  tribute  of  Socrates 
might  well  be  to  Health.  Thought  had  not  come  out 
malformed  ;  ideas  had  not  been  diseased  ;  ^sculapius, 
son  of  perfect-formed  Apollo,  may  have  been  the  symbol 
of  the  man  who  so  well  represented  the  sound  mind  in  a 
sound  body. 

And   yet   the   high  speculation  of  this  sound  mind. 


148  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

detached  from  his  age,  wrested  from  the  past,  and  laid 
before  an  American  audience,  had  the  effect  of  an  actual 
sacrifice  to  the  ^sculapius  of  superstition,  a  relapse 
through  twenty-five  centuries  :  it  had  the  sound  of  in- 
sanity. The  fair  dream  of  Socrates  had  become  the 
raving  of  a  spirit  medium.  Such  is  the  necessity  laid 
upon  the  world  to  grow,  that  the  wisdom  of  one  age 
becomes  the  folly  of  another.  The  child's  conception 
of  the  stars  as  angel-eyes  may  denote  a  clever  imagina- 
tion ;  let  him  retain  that  idea  when  he  becomes  a  man 
and  it  denotes  idiocy. 

A  great  man  in  the  past  must  be  credited  not  with  his 
bare  idea,  but  with  all  that  has  grown  out  of  it.  An  idea 
if  healthy  will  show  itself  such  by  budding  into  new 
ideas,  blossoming  in  related  brains,  and,  if  they  are 
truthful  ideas,  their  fruit  must  be  gathered  far  away,  as 
they  ripen  into  schools  of  thought.  The  greatness  of 
this  dream  of  Socrates  is  not  to  be  found  in  its  testimony 
to  individual  immortality.  After  so  many  ages  we  find 
ourselves  on  tiiat  point  still  in  ignorance, — aspiring  with 
a  fair  hope,  trusting  ourselves  to  a  sense  of  Wisdom 
and  Love  in  the  Universe.  But  the  greatness  of  the 
vision  of  the  Greek  sage  is  found  in  the  perception  it 
embodies  of  an  all-pervading  unity  in  Nature.  Since 
then  Science  has  discovered  the  innumerable  worlds  ruled 
by  one  law ;  it  has  discovered  planet  bound  with  planet ; 
and  detects  a  medium  stretching  between  our  little  world 
and  the  largest,  a  medium  through  wliich  are  transmitted 
the  light  of  the  most  distant  star  and  its  attractive 
energy.     la  one  sense  Science  has  made  our  familiar 


THE  DREAM  OF  SOCRA  TES.  149 

earth  seem  as  small  as  it  appeared  to  Socrates — a  little 
nucleus  deposited  amid  the  infinitude  of  that  space  which 
is  peopled  with  worlds.  But,  in  another  sense,  Science 
has  aggrandised  our  world  ;  it  has  shown  it  to  belong  to 
a  magnificent  system,  and  thereby  made  us  citizens  of  a 
Universe,  And  it  is  not  too  much  to  claim  for  Socrates 
that  he  vaguely  anticipated  all  this.  He  had  mentally 
allied  this  earth  with  a  more  universal  sphere.  He  out- 
lined in  imagination  an  all-inclusive  realm  of  which  this 
outer  earth  was  but  a  large  group  of  molecules.  His 
dream  of  that  nobler  grander  universe  was  especially 
splendid  because  he  saw  it  related  to  the  inward  and 
intellectual  nature  of  man.  This  was  pure  idealism  : 
when  man  had  reached  a  cosmical  development  through 
philosophy  he  would  find  himself  dwelling  in  a  new 
earth, — he  would  find  himself  no  longer  creeping  about 
in  a  little  hole  and  corner  of  his  earth,  but  residing  in  a 
grand  and  large  realm,  full  of  beauty  and  freedom,  with 
all  its  growths  and  heights  enlarged.  All  the  air  would 
be  refined  ;  it  would  be  the  luminiferous  ether  of  virtue 
and  wisdom.  Its  inhabitants  would  be  not  gross  forms 
of  flesh  and  blood,  but  beings  purified  and  ennobled. 

To  see  the  fulfilment  of  this  dream  we  must  withdraw 
from  it  just  that  which  the  spiritualist  emphasised  in  it. 
What  he  made  most  of  was  its  form  ;  we  must  make  most 
of  its  substance.  He  dwelt  on  the  mere  localisation  of  it 
in  upper  space,-  and  beyond  the  portal  of  death  ;  but  its 
truth  cannot  be  got  at  by  that  preservation  of  the  letter. 
The  essence  of  the  philosophy  of  Socrates  is  that  a 
higher  nature  within  implies  a  higher  world  without;  that 


I50  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

things  dwarfed  to  the  ignorant  are  enlarged  for  the 
knowing  ;  things  gross  to  the  unrefined  become  all  pure 
to  the  pure ;  that  things  poor  and  ugly  to  the  vulgax, 
become  significant,  beautiful,  cosmical  to  those  who  have 
emerged  from  animalism  and  become  themselves  broad 
and  largely  human.  In  a  word,  the  grand  stroke  of 
Socrates  was  to  make  the  highest  heaven  an  expansion 
of  our  own  earth,  and  the  path  to  that  heaven  a  cultiva- 
tion of  our  own  human  faculties.  The  location  of  that 
exalted  region  in  space  was  merely  incidental ;  that  may 
pass  with  his  age  to  which  it  belonged.  When  Columbus 
and  his  fellow  sailors  were  voyaging  westward,  they  saw 
in  the  morning  twilight  a  long  bank  of  flushed  and  rosy 
cloud — as  they  supposed  it.  The  rosy  cloud  proved  to 
be  the  North  American  continent.  Many  men  have 
similarly  projected  into  the  heavens  things  that  really 
were  outlying  and  unexplored  continents  of  their  own 
minds.  Socrates  projected  entirely  into  the  ether  above 
the  atmosphere,  that  fair  realm  which  increasing  know- 
ledge shows  to  be  the  most  salient  and  glorious  fact  of 
this  world,  whatever  may  be  discovered  respecting  super- 
terrestrial  regions. 

The  royal  sensualist,  surrounded  by  his  concubines, 
and  jaded  with  luxury,  exclaimed,  "  There  is  nothing  new 
under  the  sun  !  "  The  seer  on  Patmos,  exiled  and  lonely, 
cried,  "  I  see  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  ! "  What  a 
man  sees  around  him  depends  upon  what  he  has  eyes 
for  seeing.  It  is  not  the  same  earth  that  is  looked  upon 
by  the  eye  of  ignorance  and  the  eye  of  science ;  very 
different  is  the  same  landscape  to  the  vision  of  the  agri- 


THE  DREAM  OF  SOCRATES.  151 

cultural  labourer  and  to  that  of  Turner  or  Wordsworth. 
He  who  has  polished  his  senses,  cultivated  his  taste, 
freed  himself  from  base  passions,  raised  mind  and  heart 
into  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  Nature, — that  man  moves 
in  a  very  different  world  from  one  who  is  imprisoned  in 
his  lower  nature.  The  one  walks  in  the  cellar,  the  other 
in  the  saloon  of  Nature.  The  one  inhabits  a  closet  of 
the  earth,  the  other  abides  amid  its  palatial  grandeurs. 
He  sees  "the  light  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea," — the 
lustre  that  only  the  inward  vision  can  bring  to  land  and 
sea.  The  vision  of  the  dying  philosopher  is  a  prospect 
of  all  that  man  shall  find  in  his  world, — burgeoning  with 
its  life  from  flower  to  star, — when  exalted  by  virtue  his 
heart  throbs  with  the  warm  pulses  of  a  universal  heart, 
his  intellect  is  united  with  universal  Reason. 

I  count  the  highest  gain  which  philosophy  has  attained 
in  this  age  to  be  the  perception  that  the  real  way  to 
reach  a  better  world  is  to  secure  a  better  man.  If  we 
can  regenerate  man  the  earth  will  follow  him  swiftly 
enough.  A  little  more  brain  added  to  one  man's  head 
has  often  changed  the  whole  face  of  the  world.  This  is 
the  truth  which  such  men  as  Robert  Owen  were  feeling 
out — groping  after — when  they  declared  that  every  man 
is  the  reflection  of  his  circumstances.  That  was  the 
stem  on  which  has  grown  the  perception  that  the  better 
circumstance  is  the  reflection  of  a  better  man.  The 
autJior  of  that  remarkable  book  entitled  "  Hereditary 
Genius " — one  of  the  gospels  of  our  time — sent  out 
circulars  to  all  the  leading  men  of  science  now  living  in 
this  country,  inquiring  of  them  what  kind  of  people  their 


152  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

parents  and  grandparents  were ;  what  kind  of  family 
training  they  had-;  how  they  happened  to  study  science, 
— and  asking  all  -manner  of  questions  about  their  health, 
habits,  and  religion.  He  received  about  loo  answers  to 
these  questions,  all  fully  giving  the  facts  concerning  the 
nature  and  nurture  of  the  most  eminent  students  of 
nature  in  this  country.  The  results  of  these  curious 
inquiries  (whose'theological  bearings  have  already  been  re- 
ferred to)  showed  that  these  great  men  nearly  all  had 
healthy  parents ;  that  their  parents  had  generally  been 
vigorous  in  mind  as  in  body;  they  had  not  tied  their 
children  down  with  too  many  rules,  and  had  left  them  free 
to  follow  the  bent  of  their  own  minds  and  tastes.  Nearly 
all  of  them  looked  back  with  pleasure  on  their  home 
education,  but  with  regret  on  their  university  education. 

One  wrote,  ■ '  At  the  university  I  spent  most  of  three 
years  learning  Latin  and  Greek,  of  which  languages  I  am 
entirely  ignorant."  Another  wrote,  "  My  college  hfe  was 
a  blank  waste  of  time  on  the  classics."  Another  wrote 
only  the  three  words  "  Latin — Latin — Latin,"  as  the  sum 
of  all  he  got  at  his  university.  The  responses  of  all 
indicated  abounding  vitahty  and  health.  One  had  never 
had  but  two  aches  in  his  life  ;  another  in  thirty  years  had 
never  been  absent  from  his  profession  but  two  days. 
Nearly  all  avowed  themselves  heretics  in  religion.  These 
accounts  of  themselves  by  the  average  best  hundred 
heads  in  the  country  make  it  plain  that,  because  they 
were  fine  products,  they  were  also  fine  producers.  As 
Shakspere  said,  "  Nature  is  helped  by  no  mean,  but 
Nature  makes  that  mean."     But  at  the  same  time  they 


THE  DREAM  OF  SOCRA  TES.  153 

were  not  products  of  wild  uncultivated  Nature  ;  they  are 
ripe  results  of  that  culture  which  makes  every  good 
home  a  conservatory  of  greatness.  They  represent 
Nature  realising  herself  in  mind.  They  are  rock  and 
plant  crumbling  to  make  brains  able  to  interpret  rock 
and  plant.  The  world  is  winged  by  their  thought ;  and 
the  \vings  are  not  stuck  on  from  without,  but  put  forth 
from  within.  And  yet  they  are  put  forth  as  the  result  of 
a  long  accord  with  the  laws  of  the  universe  into  which 
they  are  born.  Such  families  as  those  which  through 
generations  of  study  and  obedience  evolve  these  men 
represent  that  whole  ascent  from  the  lower  to  the  higher 
world  which  Socrates  supposed  could  be  attained  only 
through  death,  and  which  people  who  are  a  few  thousand 
years  behind  their  time  still  think  is  to  be  gained  by 
some  magical  potency  of  the  grave. 

Whatever  reasons  we  may  have  for  beUeving  or  hoping 
that  men  survive  death,  we  surely  have  no  reason  for 
believing  that  any  such  transformation  takes  place  in  the 
nature  or  character  as  that  often  ascribed  to  the  change 
at  death.  Nature  is  throughout  a  series  of  conditions 
leading  to  results.  There  is  no  royal  road  to  learning, 
and  no  short  cut  to  character.  Those  moral  excellencies 
and  intellectual  powers  which  are  here  to  be  obtained 
only  by  patience,  self-denial,  fidelity,  study,  we  may  be 
sure  will  not  be  obtained  elsewhere  at  a  less  cost. 
Socrates  saw  that  any  higher  world  must  be  only  a 
widening  out  of  this  world ;  and  if  science,  coming  after 
him,  shows  the  most  distant  planet  similar  to  our  own  in 
substance  and  revolving  by  the  same  force  that  turns 


154  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

this,  we  may  be  equally  sure  that  we  shall  never  get 
beyond  the  stern  laws  of  thought  and  virtue  any  more 
than  we  shall  get  beyond  the  law  of  gravitation. 

We  may  see,  then,  in  the  dream  of  the  Greek  philoso- 
pher our  own  old  world  transfigured  in  the  light  of  its 
rational  soul.  We  may  see  in  this  dream  of  heaven  the 
possibilities  of  earth.  I  invoke  it  from  the  past  to  re- 
mind us  again  that  the  pure  earth  is  situated  in  the  pure 
heaven ;  that  it  floats  in  wisdom  as  it  floats  in  air  ;  that 
it  is  bathed  in  reason  as  it  is  bathed  in  sunlight.  By 
coarseness  and  ignorance  we  sink  to  the  bottom  of  it,  and 
see  only  the  gross  and  dwarfed  things  imbedded  in  its 
sediment.  We  sink  by  specific  gravity  of  moral  dullness 
and  mental  torpor.  To  ignorance  the  world  naturally 
seems  accurst.  By  aspiration,  by  knowledge  we  rise  to 
the  height  of  our  world,  attain  to  its  ideal  grace,  realise 
its  meaning,  and  amid  its  pomp  of  purple  and  gold,  its 
fair  hopes,  its  sweet  affections,  we  need  not  envy  the  lot 
of  any  angel. 

But  it  may  be  said,  after  all  this  is  rather  a  poor  out- 
come to  Socrates'  dream  of  a  boundless  futurity.  What 
is  the  use  of  so  much  self-denial,  patience,  study, 
knowledge,  if  it  may  all  end  when  we  have  reached  the 
end  of  our  stinted  term  of  life  on  earth  ?  Much  every- 
way. Apart  from  all  hopes  of  individual  immortality  it 
is  to  be  considered  that  by  culture  and  virtue  what  life  we 
actually  have  is  immensely  prolonged.  If,  as  the  Laureate 
says,  fifty  years  of  England  are  better  than  a  cycle  of 
Cathay,  we  may  also  say  better  one  year  of  the  thinker 
than  the   immortality  of  a  fool.     That  man's  life  cannot 


THE  DREAM  OF  SOCRATES.  155 


be  regarded  as  brief  who  is  able  to  crowd  each  hour  with 
high  emotions  and  call  about  him  past  centuries  by  history, 
and  future  ages  by  imagination.  The  educated  man  of 
to-day  is  able  to  share  the  struggles  of  primitive  man  with 
the  early  ferocities  of  nature,  to  gather  with  the  group 
surrounding  Plato  and  Socrates  at  Athens,  to  sit  at  the 
feet  of  ancient  sages  and  prophets,  to  walk  with  Christ  on 
the  hillsides  of  Palestine;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is 
able  to  note  the  tendencies  of  civilization,  to  observe  the 
direction  of  discovery,  and  realise  a  clear  vision  of  the 
world  as  it  shall  be, — to  live  ideally  in  the  distant  future. 
He  sees  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and  is  satisfied. 

Admirable  indeed  is  that  wisdom  with  which  Socrates 
preserved  a  lowly  reticence  with  regard  to  the  physical  or 
metaphysical  nature  of  that  self  of  whose  survival  he  felt 
assured  ;  it  is  akin  to  that  of  his  Jewish  brother  who  said, 
What  is  a  man  profited  if  he  have  gained  the  whole  world 
but  lost  himself  ?  The  duality  of  man's  nature  to  the  mind 
of  Socrates  is  that  of  relative  moral  values, — the  duality 
of  earth  and  ether,  gem  and  matrix,  carbon  and  diamond. 
Like  him  the  man  of  science  to-day  believes  in  the  unity 
of  nature,  and  is  indifferent  whether  it  be  said  all  is 
material  or  all  ideal.  It  is  in  the  marvels  which  science 
is  revealing  in  what  is  called  matter,  but  whose  ultimate 
nature  no  man  knows,  that  we  now  find  increasing  room 
to  admit  the  idea  of  individual  immortality.  It  is  much 
that  when  these  atoms,  vulgarly  deemed  godless,  have 
from  a  minute  germ-cell  built  up  the  brain  of  Socrates 
they  have  lodged  therein  a  vision  of  eternal  progression  ; 
that  when  they  ascend  from  plant  and  pebble  to  the  brain 


156  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

of  Goethe,  they  think  "  that  the  destruction  of  such  a 
mind  as  Wieland's  is  not  to  be  thought  of:  Nature  is  not 
so  prodigal  of  her  jewels  ; "  that  the  molecules  transfigured 
in  the  mount  of  Emerson's  brain  testify  that  the  army  of 
intellects  are  not  drilled  only  to  be  shot  before  the  action, 
and  that  individual  immortality  "  must  be  proved,  if  at 
all,  from  our  own  activity  and  designs,  which  demand  an 
interminable  future  for  their  play."  These  are  the  out- 
looks of  men  who  fairly  filled  the  measure  of  their  days, 
and  did  not  project  into  the  future  resources  that  might 
be  drawn  on  in  time.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that  the 
growth  of  human  knowledge  and  society  may  unfold 
powers  and  treasures  in  the  earth  adequate  to  satisfy  all 
the  hopes  and  give  full  play  to  all  the  faculties  of  the 
largest  genius  ;  but  if  so  that  will  surdy  be  immortality 
and  heaven  enough.  It  would  fulfil  the  prophecy  of 
Margaret  Fuller  who  said,  "  if  men  knew  how  to  look 
around  them,  they  need  not  look  above."  But  whatever 
may  be  the  lands  of  earthly  promise  to  which  this  vision — 
half  cloud,  half  fire — leads  us,  there  is  somewhat  stirring 
in  the  greatest  hearts  that  seems  related  to  the  whole  and 
not  any  fragment  of  the  universe. 

Nor  is  there  anything  in  the  actual  condition  of  science, 
or  in  its  ideal,  inharmonious  with  the  survival,  in  the 
molecules  liberated  at  death,  of  the  principle  of  thought 
and  even  of  memory.  Evolution  means  nature's  rigid 
economy  of  all  advantages  attained ;  and  there  is  no 
evidence  that  all  improvements  may  be  secured  in- 
dependently of  their  representative  individual  minds. 
Whatever  may  be  the  principle  of  the   individual  con- 


THE  DREAM  OF  SOCRATES.  iS7 


sciousness,  we  have  the  pregnant  fact  that  it  is  able  to 
preserve  a  continuous  existence  and  identity  through  all 
the   appreciable  changes  of  form,   and   to   survive   the 
departure  of  many  bodies.     A  man   of  seventy-five  has 
possessed  at  least  ten  different  bodies  ;  these  have  come 
from  nature  to  invest  his  personality  and  been  successively 
yielded  back  to  nature ;  yet  the  man  feels  himself  one  and 
the  same  mind  that  acted  in    well-remembered   scenes 
when  he  was  a  child.     "  How,"  asks  Professor  Tyndall,* 
"  is  the  sense  of  personal  identity  maintained  across  this 
flight  of  molecules  ?     To  man,  as  we  know  him,  matter  is 
ne'cessary  to  consciousness  ;  but  the  matter  of  any  period 
may  be    all  changed,  while  consciousness    exhibits   no 
solution  of  continuity.      Like   changing   sentinels,   the 
oxygen,   hydrogen,    and   carbon   that   depart,    seem   to 
whisper  their  secret  to  their  comrades  that  arrive,   and 
thus,  while  the  Non-ego  shifts,  the  Ego  remains  intact. 
Constancy  of  form  in  the  grouping  of  the  molecules,  and 
not   constancy    of    the    molecules    themselves,    is    the 
correlative  of  this  constancy  of  perception." 

But  in  what  does  this  "  constancy  of  form  "  lie  ?     Does 
it  belong  to  the  brain  in  its  integrity,  or  inhere  in  some 
subtle   quality   generated  in  the  molecules   when   they 
have  been  initiated  into  a  certain  organisation  ;  so  that 
each   (molecule),    or  perhaps  some  more  finely-filtered, 
possibly  invisible,  group  of  molecules  becomes  the  seat  of 
the  transmitted  consciousness  ?  Some  portions  of  the  brain 
may  be  removed  and  consciousness  still  remain  ;  but  as  yet 
no  probe  has  reached  its  secret  residence.  The  analogies  of 
*  "  Fragments  of  Science,"  p.  4^2. 


158  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

nature  would  seem  to  indicate  that  in  life's  consummate 
flower — the  brain — there  may  exist  a  sacred  seed  in 
which  its  unbroken  history  is  stored,  and  which  may 
remain  when  decay  has  overtaken  the  stem  of  flesh  and 
blood,  the  petals  of  expression  fallen,  the  individual 
fragrance  vanished.  Some  brains  may  indeed  have  no 
seed,  or  such  as  are  only  rudimentary  ;  but  others  may 
sum  themselves  up  in  such  to  float,  winged,  into  the 
pure  ether  in  which  Socrates  and  the  thinker  of  to-day 
alike  feel  themselves  embosomed,  to  unfold  elsewhere  in 
higher  development,  as  their  influence  and  thought  are 
unfolded  among  men  on  earth. 

May !  As  yet  indeed  it  is  all  a  great  Perhaps. 
Nevertheless  the  possibilities,  if  indeed  we  may  not  say 
probabilities,  that  our  hope  may  tell  true,  are  sufficient  to 
make  us  meet  with  enthusiastic  welcome  those  trans- 
cendent discoveries  which  are  unfolding  the  wondrous 
potencies  of  what  ignorant  ages  once  thought  only  coarse, 
and  which  those  ages  still  survive  in  some  so-called  minds 
to  despise  as  "  mere  matter."  "When  we  think  of  the 
Alhambra  in  Spain  there  rises  in  the  memory  or  imagina- 
tion the  perfected  beauty  of  an  entire  development  of  art. 
Yet  the  word  "Alhambra"  only  means  "red  clay." 
That  common  red  clay  which  the  Spaniards  modelled 
into  rude  images  ascended  with  the  genius  of  the  Moors, 
cultured  it  may  be  under  the  Persians,  until  after  putting 
forth  many  leaves  and  buds  it  expanded  into  the  matchless 
modellings  and  hues  of  the  immortal  building.  Nor  can 
we  forget  that  many  scholars  find  the  same  significance 
in  the  name   of  the  traditional  first  man, — Adam,  "  red 


THE  DREAM  OF  SOCRATES.  159 

clay."  But  in  the  progress  of  ages  what  fine  work  has 
been  put  on  that  first  mere  animate  modelling  of  man  ! 
What  evolutional  forces  have  fashioned  the  complex  brain, 
what  accumulated  ages  of  divine  art  have  frescoed  its 
interior  walls  with  tints  of  imagination  and  the  decora- 
tions of  love  and  virtue  !  Behold  at  last  the  glorious 
shrine  of  conscience,  the  temple  of  Reason  ! 

Our  ideas  of  the  ascent  of  matter  may  not  be  limited 
by  such  illustrations  as  these.  The  prism  which  drew  so 
many  colours  from  the  "  mere  "  sunbeam,  and  now  wins 
from  planets  their  secrets,  is  but  one  of  the  many  new 
eyes  which  may  lie  around  us — some  of  them  as  unnoted 
as  bits  of  glass — waiting  to  open  before  us  vistas  into  un- 
dreamed realms  of  the  worlds  within  and  without  us.  As 
the  low  aims  and  desires,  which  could  alone  grow  out  of  a 
religion  that  appealed  only  to  fear  and  selfishness,  pass 
away  with  the  dogmas  which  fostered  them,  let.us  at  least  see 
that  the  new  hopes  that  arise  are  not  based  i^pon  unreality 
nor  dependent  on  enforced  compliance  with  the  remnants 
of  prejudice.  By  so  doing  we  shall  not  fail  to  obtain  a 
reward  far  higher  than  delusion  can  offer  us.  Whatever 
the  future  may  have  in  store  for  us  will  not  be  the  less 
reached,  while — if  a  conscious  existence — it  will  be  all 
the  more  enjoyed  by  our  having  wasted  no  resource, 
overlooked  no  opportunity,  of  the  life  and  the  world  we 
actually  possess,  made  what  paradise  we  can  around  us 
and  overarched  each  radiant  day  with  its  own  eternity. 


]X. 

FLOWER   AND   THORN. 


II 


FLOWER    AND    THORN. 


ilOHAMMED  was  a  man  of  deeds  rather  than 
words,  yet  that  is  an  impressive  sentence 
which  is  ascribed  to  him. — "  The  Earth  is  the 
cradle  of  Man."  The  grandeur  of  our  unattained  ideals, 
the  discoveries  of  science,  which  with  every  fact  revealed 
discloses  the  larger  extent  of  our  infar  tile  ignorance,  remmd 
us  day  by  day  and  night  by  night  that  we  are  but  babes. 
In  the  most  ancient  times  it  was  the  custom  of  mothers  to 
cover  the  cradles  of  their  children  with  mysterious  figures 
and  runic  charms  to  protect  them  against  evil  spirits  ;  when 
Christianity  came,  there  was  substituted  for  these  pagan 
devices  the  images  of  saints  and  texts  from  the  Scriptures, 
so  that  even  in  its  cradle  the  child  was  surrounded  by  the 
symbols  of  religion.  But  that  great  Love,  of  which  are 
the  hearts  of  mothers,  has  no  less  covered  the  sides  of 
the  Earth-cradle  with  symbols  and  inscriptions  that  im- 
press the  growing  mind  long  before  it  can  understand 
them,  and  whose  lessons  our  ripest  years  cannot  outgrow. 
Full  of  significance  are  those  mystical  emblems  which 
surrounded  the  crude  unconscious  beginnings  of  human 


i64  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

thought.  Here  is  pictured  on  the  cradle-side  a  beautiful 
tree  with  ripe  fruit;  but  on  that  tree  hangs  a  subtle,  deadly 
serpent.  So  was  it  in  Eden,  but  not  less  in  other  lands. 
In  the  South  there  was  portrayed  a  garden  of  Hesperus, 
full  of  golden  fruit,  but  at  its  entrance  laid  a  fearful  dragon. 
In  the  North  there  was  a  Tree  of  the  Universe,  whose 
fruits  were  stars,  but  a  serpent  lay  coiled  about  its  roots. 
There  were  many  similar  fables  showing  that  man 
had  already  felt  that  in  Nature  there  is  no  good  without 
an  evil  beside  it. 

But  in  the  course  of  time  we  find  that  the  human  mind, 
having  learned  so  much,  made  an  effort  to  translate  that 
co-existence  of  pain  and  pleasure  into  moral  meaning. 
By  what  processes  it  worked  on  we  know  but  little,  but 
we  know  that  our  ancestors  thought  it  out  deeply  and 
reached  some  brave  results.  One  of  the  most  striking 
indications  is  the  name  which  the  Greeks  gave  to  the 
Furies.  The  Furies  were  the  terrible  fonns  of  pain, 
scourging  and  pursuing  all  evil-doers.  Yet  the  Greeks 
called  them  the  Eu7nenides,  the  well-meaning.  Though 
at  first,  perhaps,  euphemistic,  the  poets  couched  in  that 
word  their  discovery  that  pain  is  not  without  its  heart  of 
good. 

When  we  come  to  the  religion  of  ancient  Rome  we 
find  a  still  further  development  of  the  idea  of  a  good  in 
apparent  evil.  One  of  the  finest  features  of  Roman 
theolopy  was  that  which  it  received  from  Etruria.  In 
the  more  ancient  mythology  it  was  held  that  Zeus  wielded 
the  thunderbolts  as  he  pleased,  striking  whom  and  what  he 
would  without  responsibility.       But  the  Roman  theology 


FLOWER  AND  THORN.  165 

held  that  Jupiter  was  surrounded  by  a  council  of  the  twelve 
chief  gods  and  goddesses.  These  gods  and  goddesses 
were  divided  into  two  classes, — one  class  called  the  Dii 
Consentes  (the  consenting  gods),  the  others  the  Dii  Jn- 
voluti  (or  wrapped  up  gods) ;  these  being  veiled  deities 
who  held  their  hands  against  their  mouths.  Now,  Jupiter 
was  allowed  to  hurl  his  thunderbolts  freely  for  mere  terror ; 
but  if  he  wished  to  do  more  than  frighten  he  had  to  con- 
sult his  cabinet  of  consenting  gods,  and  only  if  they 
agreed  could  he  strike,  and  then  his  bolts  hurt  but  also 
healed.  If  he  wished  to  blast  and  destroy,  he  had  to 
obtain  the  consent  of  the  Involuti, — those  veiled  deities, 
who  were  really  the  Fates. 

Here  we  have  the  clearly  formed  idea  of  a  regulation 
and  a  good  purpose  in  evil  and  pain,  instead  of  chance 
or  caprice.  But  we  meet  with  a  still  higher  meaning  in 
the  fact  that  the  statue  of  the  goddess  Angerona  was 
placed  in  the  temple  of  Volapia.  Angerona  was  the 
goddess  of  anguish  ;  Volupia  was  the  goddess  of  delight. 
The  rites  of  Angerona  were  performed  in  the  temple  of 
Volupia,  to  denote  that  sorrow  is  related  to  pleasure. 

These  instances, — which  might  be  multiplied, — suffice 
to  show  how  long  and  patiently  the  heart  and  mind  of 
man  have  been  struggling  to  harmonise  the  phenomena 
of  good  and  evil,  and  find  them  equally  representative  of 
the  divine  unity  in  Nature.  They  have  transmitted  the 
problem  to  us  :  they  could  not  altogether  solve  it ;  but 
as  we  receive  it  from  them  it  is  enveloped  with  a  radiant 
and  perfect  faith  that  in  some  way  or  other  evil  is  only 
apparent,  the  bitter  rind  of  sweetness. 


1 66  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

It  appears  to  me  that  under  the  higher  Hght  cast  on 
Nature  in  our  day,  we  are  able  to  emerge  a  step  from 
this  old  darkness,  and  to  spell  out  whole  sentences  where 
our  forefathers  struggled  with  the  alphabet. 

Let  us  take  the  rose  and  the  thorn  ;  if  we  find  out 
their  relation  and  meaning  we  will  have  explored  heaven 
and  hell.  There  is  no  evil  in  nature  which  is  not  repre- 
sented in  a  thorn, — no  good  which  may  not  be  typified 
in  the  rose.  The  pleasure-principle  in  Nature,  and  the 
pain-priBciple,  are  brought  together  on  every  bush  that 
bears  both  flowers  and  thorns.  Now,  why  does  a  bush 
or  tree  bear  thorns  ?  We  know  precisely  why  that  is. 
The  thorn  is  put  forth  to  protect  the  flower.  Flowers  do 
not  all  have  thorns  ;  some  are  protected  by  having  a  bad 
odour ;  some  by  being  poisons  or  like  poisons,  which 
grazing  animals  avoid  ;  others  by  growing  on  steep  places 
inaccessible  to  those  that  would  harm  them.  But  all 
these  defences  are  a  kind  of  thorn, — the  poison,  the  bad 
odour,  the  dangerous  precipice,  answer  to  the  flower  the 
same  end  as  a  thorn.  A  child  grasps  at  a  rose  and  its 
hand  is  pierced  by  a  thorn.  It  forgets  all  about  the 
flower  in  its  pain,  and  wonders  why  the  good  God  should 
make  thorns.  The  real  answer  would  be  that  the  thorn 
is  put  there  to  pieice  children's  fingers,  and  the  tongues 
and  lips  of  other  animals,  so  as  to  prevent  their  killing 
oif  the  flowers.  If  there  had  been  no  such  thing  as  a 
thorn  the  child  would  never  have  had  a  rose  to  tempt  him 
at  all.  Another  child  is  stung  by  a  bee,  and  complains 
to  the  Universe  against  the  existence  of  stings.  Very 
well,  little  friend,  let  there  be  no  sting  and  you  must  get 


FLOWER  AND  THORN.  167 

on  without  honey.  A  hundred  animals  would  devour  the 
bees,  were  it  not  for  their  stings,  and  exterminate  these 
and  all  other  manufacturers  of  sweetness  from  the  earth. 
In  the  pain  of  thorn  or  sting  you  may  forget  the  flower 
and  the  honey ;  but  if  the  bee  or  bush  be  examined  it 
will  appear  that  the  pain  they  can  inflict  is  not  the  end 
for  v/hich  they  exist.  They  exist  for  beauty  and  sweet- 
ness ;  their  defensive  apparatus  is  hidden  beneath,  and 
only  used  in  an  emergency. 

Thus  we  begin  with  very  easy  lessons  ;  but  all  the  ills 
of  Nature  arc  not  so  simple.  If  there  be  a  rose  and 
thorn  on  our  cradle-sides  there  is  also  a  deadly  serpent 
there — moral  evil,  guilt.  There  are  agonies  which  it  is 
difficult  to  connect  with  any  use  at  all.  The  sting  of  a 
bee  protects  honey ;  but  what  good  is  protected  by  that 
crawling  magazine  of  death — the  cobra  snake  1  and  what 
by  the  venomous  reptile  when  it  has  climbed  to  the  form 
of  a  man  ? 

Philosophy  has  discovered  that  the  method  of  extend- 
ing our  knowledge  is  to  apply  more  accurately  and  widely 
principles  with  which  we  are  already  partly  familiar.  I 
suppose  it  was  after  the  ancients  had  found  out  that  in 
some  cases  evil  was  at  heart  good  that  they  believed  all 
the  Furies'  well-meaning.  Why  may  we  not  consider  all 
the  evils  under  the  sun  as  thorns?— and  why  may  not 
all  be  doing  the  good  work  which  thorns  do  for  flowers 
and  fruits  ? 

As  we  have  already  seen,  Evolution  shows  all  the  fine 
activitiesof  animated  Nature  produced  by  danger  and  suffer- 
ing.   One  animal  became  swift  because  it  was  necessary  to 


1.68  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

outrun  some  other  animal  that  was  seeking  to  destroy  it. 
Another  animal  became  intelligent  because  it  had  to  out- 
wit some  stronger  animal  that  was  its  enemy.  The 
velocity,  the  sagacity,  the  imitativeness,  which  we  see  in 
•the  brute  world,  came  there  because  there  were  dangers 
to  be  avoided,  pains  to  be  escaped,  because  they  were 
environed  with  destructive  forces.  Slowness  and  stupi- 
dity became  fatal ;  and  so  Death  gave  birth  to  the  various 
energies  of  Life.  That  horrible  serpent  helped  to  give 
to  the  bird  its  wings  ;  for  it  devoured  the  bird  that 
could  not  soar  out  of  its  reach. 

Next  let  us  take  the  naked,  savage  man.  We  know 
well  that  his  every  step  in  physical  improvement  was 
taken  to  avoid  some  danger.  To  avoid  the  bad  weather 
he  clothed  himself;  to  escape  the  flood  or  the  wild  beast 
he  exchanged  his  rude  hut  for  a  good  house  ;  to  cope 
with  foes  he  invented  weapons  and  implements.  Danger 
roused  his  faculties  ;  evil  stimulated  his  wits  and  his 
encTgies.  It  is  notorious  that  Avhere  there  is  the  greatest 
hardship  amid  Nature,  there  man  has  become  most  civi- 
lised. I  say  hardship,  for  there  may  be  regions  where 
Nature  becomes  so  hard  as  to  be  prohibitory  ;  what  I 
mean  is  that,  where  Nature  is  so  luxuriant  as  to  render 
life  less  difficult,  there  is  never  the  same  advance  of  skill 
and  intelHgence  as  in  regions  where  existence  and  hap- 
piness demand  perpetual  thought  and  energy.  Our 
highest  powers  have  thus  been  developed  by  what  we 
call  evil,  just  as  the  rose  has  been  developed  by  its  briar. 
If  there  had  been  no  danger  to  escape,  no  enemy  to 
conquer,   no   difficulty  to  surmount,   there  is  reason   to 


FLOWER  AND  THORN.  169 

believe  that  man  would  have  been  a  witless,  stupid, 
soulless  animal  ;  in  fact,  there  could  have  been  no  such 
being  as  man  at  all. 

And  I  submit  that  the  same  rule  may  be  applied  to 
what  we  distinguish  as  m.oral  evil.  All  the  moral  laws 
have  been  written  by  crimes.  The  eternal  mandates  have 
been  thundered  from  the  Sinai  within  us  in  response  to 
violations  of  them.  There  is  good  reason  why  each  com- 
mandment begins  "Thou  shalt  not," — instead  of  "Thou 
shalt."  It  was  because  each  was  brought  to  light  through 
some  wrong  done.  Nor  can  it  be  said,  in  reply,  that  if 
there  were  no  evil  the  great  moral  laws  would  be  of  no 
advantage.  Far  beyond  their  mere  ability  to  punish 
criminals  is  the  use  of  the  moral  laws.  They  mark  the 
culture  of  man  ;  they  indicate  the  ethical  structure  of  the 
Universe.  The  advantage  of  knowing  the  laws  of  elec- 
tricity does  not  end  with  giving  us  telegraphs  ;  of  much 
more  value  than  telegraphs  is  the  growth  so  added  to  the  ' 
intellect  of  man.  And,  similarly,  the  sentences  of  courts 
are  trifles  compared  with  man's  discernment  of  the  great 
moral  and  social  laws  which  are  the  very  lineaments  of 
the  Divine  Wisdom  and  Justice  organised  in  Nature. 

But  in  studying  this  subject  there  is  a  point  at  which 
the  order  of  Nature  seems  reversed,  or  rather  inverted. 
We  have  thus  far  dealt  with  pain  as  the  thing  which  all 
beings  are  seeking  most  to  avoid,  and  pleasure  as  that 
which  all  are  seeking.  But  after  the  animals  have  been 
developed  by  this  perpetual  avoidance  of  pain  ;  after  the 
savage  man  has  been  clothed,  housed,  and  even  civilised, 
by  the  same  stimulant ;  we  come   to  a  phase  of  human 


I70  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

life  where  what  we  call  pain  is  no  longer  the  most  power- 
ful motive.  The  man  most  revered  among  us  was  not 
crowned  with  flowers,  but  with  thorns.  Around  him  grew 
the  lilies  and  the  roses  of  life,  as  around  others  ;  but  he 
gathered  the  thorns, — the  scourge,  the  hatred,  the  cross, — 
plucking  from  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane  only  its  agony. 
And  as  he  stands  in  our  vision,  with  him  is  a  great  army 
of  mart3'rs,  of  men  and  women  who  found  life's  joy  amid 
dens,  and  deserts,  and  flames.  But  the  contradiction 
here  is  only  seeming.  For  the  soul,  too,  is  a  mystical 
rose,  and  the  thorn  that  protects  it  is  the  conscience. 
When  Jesus  wears  thorns  upon  his  head  it  is  only  because 
all  the  roses  are  blooming  in  his  heart.  The  sting  he 
dreads  is  guilt ;  the  fang  he  avoids  is  that  envenomed  with 
inward  falsehood  ;  and  the  thorns  that  tear  only  his  flesh 
are  pleasant,  for  each  implies  a  bloom  in  his  deep  spirit. 
The  old  law  which  has  raised  the  world  by  pain  and  fear 
does  not  cease  when  good  men  seem  to  welcome  what 
others  dread  ;  it  only  passes  inward,  and  becomes  the 
fear  and  horror  of  spiritual  evil  which  protect  the  purity 
of  the  heart  and  stimulates  the  will  to  put  forth  its 
tremendous  energies.  Our  moral  nature  has  been  created 
by  evil,  and  the  dread  of  evil.  Every  virtue  marks  the 
recoil  from  a  sin.  Flower  and  thorn  are  deep  within  us  ; 
and  there  was  never  a  Heaven  which  was  not  rooted  in  a 
Hell. 

A  thinker  once  remarked  that  the  chief  puzzle  in  this 
universe  was  the  evil  caused  by  things  good.  Nothing 
causes  more  mischief  than  many  of  our  best  feelings  and 
efforts.     What  agonies  and  desolations  have  grown  out 


FLOWER  AND  THORN.  171 

of  human  love.  What  pain  has  been  caused  by  the 
desire  of  hberty.  But  really  there  is  no  puzzle  here.  It 
is  only  what  we  have  seen — that  Nature  is  sure  to  put  a 
sting  where  she  wishes  to  secure  honey.  The  more  sweet 
the  product  aimed  at  the  sharper  the  protecting  sting.  It 
is  because  it  is  so  necessary  that  human  love  shall  be 
pure  and  secure,  that  all  violations  of  its  laws  are  so 
fiercely  punished.  It  is  because  liberty  is  so  essential 
that  all  misdirected  efforts  for  it  end  in  sorrow  and  failure. 
Optimi  corrupt  to  pessima. 

But  here,  indeed,  we  pause  before  the  veil  which  has 
never  been  lifted.  Why  pain  and  guilt  should  be  the 
method  of  the  Universe  we  know  not ;  it  is  even  one  of 
those  problems  which  to  some  bear  signs  that  they  can 
never  be  solved.  It  must  content  us  to  know  that  there  is 
no  evil  that  exists  in  any  sense  but  as  a  condition  and 
method  of  good.  Darkness  is  not  the  equivalent  of  Light. 
There  is  no  shawdow  but  points  to  the  light. 

Among  the  ancient  topes  recently  discovered  in  India 
there  is  one  representing  devotees  gathered  around  the 
Tree  and  Serpent,  and  each  worshipper  is  shown  holding 
his  tongue,  literally,  between  finger  and  thumb  :  the 
significance  of  this  attitude  is  lost  unless  we  can  find  it 
in  the  archives  of  our  own  breast,  and  learn,  in  presence 
of  the  world's  fair  growths,  to  meet  its  types  of  pain  with 
the  homage  of  silence. 


REAL    AND     IDEAL. 


REAL    AND    IDEAL. 


I.— REALISING  THE  IDEAL. 


N  the  second  part  of  the  drama  of  Faust,  Goethe 
has   introduced  two  scenes  which,  taken    to- 
gether, show  the  ideals  that  may,  and  those 
that  may  not,  be  reahsed. 

Faust  and  Mephistopheles  appear  at  the  Imperial 
Court,  where  Faust  wishes  promotion.  They  find  the 
emperor  on  his  throne,  with  the  fool  on  his  right  hand 
and  the  astrologer  on  his  left,^Frivolity  and  Luck  being 
his  main  dependence, — while  the  empire  is  in  anarchy 
through  utter  bankruptcy.  The  great  want  of  everybody, 
from  the  peasant  to  the  prince,  is  money.  Mephisto- 
pheles is  called  upon  to  make  the  empire  rich  and  happy. 
That  is  precisely  what  the  clever  demon  is  good  for. 
That  is  exactly  the  kind  of  ideal  perfected  cunning  can 
help  man  to  realise,  at  least  seemingly.  The  art  of 
printing,  which  Faust  has  invented,  is  brought  into  requi- 
sition. Mephistopheles  floods  the  empire  with  paper 
money.  Everybody  suddenly  becomes  rich.  In  court 
and  street  they  rush  about  with  joy,  hands  full  of  paper 
wealth,  and  the  imperial  exchequer  is  full  to  overflowing. 


1 76  ID OLS  AND  IDEALS. 

The  demon,  of  course,  observes  cynically  the  complete 
satisfaction  so  cheaply  supplied ;  and  he  notes  that  the 
only  person  who  has  the  least  suspicion  about  this  wealth 
is  the  court  fool.  The  emperor  has  lavished  on  his  fool 
five  thousand  paper  crowns,  and  the  latter  asks  Mephi- 
stopheles  if  it  really  is  money's  worth,  if  it  will  buy  cattle., 
house,  land?  Mephistopheles  assures  him  that  it  will  ; 
and  the  fool  says,  then  he  will  spend  it  all  instantly.  This 
resolution  not  to  wait,  but  to  change  the  paper  for  land 
as  soon  as  possible,  elicits  from  the  devil  the  only  honest 
compliment  he  ever  paid  to  any  mortal.  As  the  fool 
hastens  to  spend  his  money,  Mephistopheles  says,  "Who 
can  say  that  fool  is  without  brains  ?  " 

So  much  for  the  ideal  that  is  attainable.     In  the  other 
scene,  Faust,  whom   the  paper  money  has  raised  high  at 
court,  is  commissioned  to  get  up  a  tableau  to  amuse  the 
emperor,  and  he  now  demands  of  the  demon  that  he  shall 
raise  for  the  scene  the  Greek  Helena — the  ideal  of  Beauty, 
as  exalted  and  purified  through  the  perspective  of  ages. 
Mephistopheles  is  much  annoyed  at  this  demand.     It's 
easy  enough,  he  says,  to  raise  paper  ghosts,  but  to  raise 
Greek  ideals,  he  intimates,   is  not  only  difficult,  but  too 
heathenish  for  a  Christian  devil  like  himself     However, 
he  gives  Faust  a  key  by  which  he  may  visit  the  mysterious 
Mothers, — the  primal  laws,  I  suppose,  the  conditions  that 
must  be  fulfilled  before  any  high  thing  can  be  reached, — 
and  the  tableau  is  thiis  rendered  possible.     The  emperor 
and  his  court  assemble,  and  there  is  a  sort  of  seance, 
the  light  being  lowered.     At  length  the  mist  parts  at  one 
end  of  the  room,  revealing  Pans  sleeping.     Next,  Helen 


REAL  AND  IDEAL. 


>77 


appears — approaches.  Faust  beholds  in  that  ideal  being 
what  through  all  his  life  he  has  been  seeking,  and  this 
glimpse  of  perfect  beauty  degrades  and  deforms  other 
objects.  Mephistopheles  seeing  his  agitation,  warns  Faust 
to  be  calm,  and  not  break  the  conditions.  But  when  Paris 
is  bearing  Helen  away,  Faust,  uncontrollable,  rushes 
forward — seizes  her.  Then  straightway  Helen  vanishes  ; 
everything  vanishes — court,  emperor,  all ;  Faust  falls 
senseless.  When  he  comes  to  himself  he  is  in  his  old 
narrow  Gothic  room — prostrate. 

Such  was  the  result  of  an  attempt  to  grasp  the  ideal — 
to  enjoy  the  perfect  by  a  stroke — to  leap  to  the  top  of 
the  stairway,  and  realise  supreme  beauty  without  patiently 
climbing  the  intervening-  steps.  It  is  only  very  low  aims — 
the  mere  promises-to-pay  of  life,  not  life — which,  like  the 
paper  money,  can  be  easily  secured.  Whoso  can  be  satis- 
fied with  the  shows  of  things  shall  be  satisfied.  And  so  far 
as  any  intellectual  ideal  is  to  be  procured,  all  wealth,  how- 
ever solid,  is  but  paper, — it  is  but  the  promise,  not  the 
reality  of  life. 

In  the  great  poem  of  Goethe  we  may  see  depicted  the 
struggle  of  man  to  fill  out  the  halfness  of  his  nature.  First 
we  see  the  tragedy  of  Faust  and  Margaret :  passion  madly 
clutching  visible  beauty,  to  find  it  turn  to  ashes  :  next  in- 
tellect clutching  invisible  beauty,  only  to  find  it  also 
fading  away.  It  is  the  allegory  of  all  ages, — especially  of 
our  own  age.  The  nineteenth  century  has  been  filled 
with  feverish  dreams, — dreams  unfulfilled.  We  have  seen 
it  animating  whole  empires.  The  century  opened  with 
a  great  military  Mephistopheles,  raising  before  France  a 


178  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

vision  of  universal  empire  :  twice  did  that  nation  grasp  at 
the  wild  phantasy,  and  twice  did  it  find  itself  hurled  to 
the  ground ;  once  on  the  field  of  Waterloo,  once  on  the 
field  of  Sedan.  The  Russian  empire,  the  Austrian  empire, 
the  Spanish,  the  Papal,  they  have  all  despised  the  slow 
steps  of  patience,  they  have  sought  to  gain  by  splendid 
leaps  the  rewards  of  steady  progress,  and  been  hurled 
back  to  hard  narrow  walls,  prostrate — with  the  mocking 
devil  of  delusion  at  their  side. 

Not  very  different  has  been  the  fate  of  those  who  have 
aspired  to  nobler  ideals, — the  children  of  revolution,  who 
have  fought  and  won  so  many  victories  for  ideal  justice 
and  right  only  to  find  their  victories  dragged  to  the 
support  of  oppression  and  wrong. 

Yet  a  higher  horizon  of  our  century  is  visible,  where 
shine  the  poetic  hearts  who  have  tried  to  embody  their 
visions  in  perfect  societies.  The  socialist  dreamers  came 
to  their  several  fig-trees,  but  the  time  of  figs  was  not 
yet :  under  the  breath  of  the  hard  actual  each  ideal 
withered.  There  is  a  small  house  in  Paris  before  which 
I  have  sometimes  paused,  and  thought  of  the  two  great 
men  who  had  lived  there.  The  first  was  a  poet — 
Moliere — who  200  years  ago  cherished  his  gay  ideals, — 
ideals  not  too  high  for  a  certain  realisation,  which  art 
gave  them  in  the  mimic  life  of  the  stage.  But  this 
terrible  centuiy,  as  it  dawned  with  lurid  light,  found 
seated  there  a  poet  resolved  that  his  ideals  should  be 
realised  on  the  stage  of  the  world.  It  was  Saint-Simon. 
There  it  was  this  French  Count — descendant  of  Charle- 
magne— set  himself  to  the  task  of  creating  a  new  society,  a 


REAL  AND  IDEAL. 


179 


new  Christianity,  a  new  man.  There  was  to  be  a  Pariiament 
of  Industry,  a  Church  of  Science  and  Art,  universal  educa- 
tion, universal  love.  This  happy  dream  was  portrayed  with 
every  touch  of  beauty,  every  artful  tint  ofpicturesqueness, 
no  argument  omitted  that  sentiment,  scholarship  and 
eloquence  could  bestow  upon  it.  At  the  age  of  sixty  the 
old  man  sat  there,  and  before  him  his  divine  model,  like 
the  statue  carved  by  PygmaHon,  awaiting  only  a  breath 
to  become  a  living  form  and  soul.  Then  he  turned  from 
its  fascinating  beauty  to  look  around  him.  He  found 
himself  and  his  family  on  the  verge  of  starvation.  His 
last  coin  had  gone  to  print  books  that  no  publisher 
would  undertake,  and  no  public  would  buy.  No  help 
came  to  him.  Nobody  was  interested  in  his  rainbow 
visions,  save  one  or  two  followers  poor  and  powerless  as 
himself  So  Saint-Simon  concluded  it  was  time  to  die. 
He  loaded  a  pistol ;  appointed  a  certain  minute  at  which 
to  end  his  life.  Then  he  occupied  the  remaining  time 
with  finishing  touches  on  the  books  that  represented  the 
labours  of  his  life.  When  the  hand  of  the  clock  reached 
the  appointed  moment  he  fired  at  his  head.  After  some 
time  his  two  friends  Comte  and  Sarlardiere  entered  and 
found  him  not  yet  dead,  but  awaiting  his  end  with  tran- 
quillity. They  ap[jlied  themselves  to  his  relief,  but  Saint- 
Simon  said,  "  How  can  a  man  live  and  think  with  seven 
slugs  in  his  brain!"  Even  in  his  agony  he  could  not  think 
of  life  apart  from  thought.  Yet  live  he  did,  to  complete 
that  philosophy  which  supplied  the  framework  of  Comte "s 
Positivism,  and  of  the  social  scheme  which  others  endea- 
voured to  realise  in  European  and  American  communities. 


r8o  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

The  enthusiasm  of  idealists  like  these  might  move  the 
very  stones  to  admiration.  A  thousand  low  successes 
around  us  are  worth  less  than  one  such  pathetically  noble 
failure.  Such  lives  and  tragedies  are  failures  only  in  the 
sense  that  the  cross  was  a  failure  ;  but  for  such  aims  and 
failures  the  earth  would  lose  its  halo  and  float  on,  a  mere 
ball  of  dust.  But  we  must  not  throw  away  experience  ; 
we  see  how  the  fruit  and  grain  gamer  the  light  of  days 
and  seasons,  to  reappear  in  their  red  flush  and  golden 
ripeness  :  the  lives  of  the  great  and  true  visit  us  with 
intenser  rays,  and  no  quickening  soul  should  rise  and  set 
without  leaving  its  glory  with  us,  transmuted  to  larger 
benefit. 

What  we  learn,  first  of  all,  is  that  the  ideal  never 
descends.  The  divine  Word  is  never  made  flesh.  In 
founding  themselves  upon  the  theory  of  Incarnation  many 
religions  have  made  a  fundamental  mistake.  The  higher 
never  descends  to  the  lower.  It  never  stoops  to  con- 
quer. Not  descent  but  ascent,  not  incarnation  but 
apotheosis,  is  the  theme  that  comes  to  us  from  the  great 
— not  least  from  him  who  climbed  the  mountain  and 
adored  the  ideal  till  his  face  was  altered,  and  his  raiment 
transfigured,  snow-pure  in  the  exceeding  brightness.  The 
perfect  cannot  help  us  by  bending,  by  becoming  imper- 
fect :  it  can  help  us  only  by  shining  on  there — the  pure 
uncompliant  Perfect.  To  embody  an  ideal  were  to 
destroy  it.  Every  idol  was  once  an  ideal.  All  the  gods 
have  been  destroyed  by  the  attempt  to  embody  them. 
All  the  fairies  were  once  ideals ;  by  being  lowered  for 
vulgar  realisation  they  declined  to  anthropomorphic  gods 


KEAL  AND  IDEAL.  i8l 


and  goddesses  ;  in  the  nurseries,  and  in  the  cottages  of 
peasants,  they  were  diminished  for  the  comprehension  of 
childhood  and  ignorance ;  and  so  remained  to  haunt 
field,  forest,  and  hut,  as  spectres,  fairies,  and  pixies. 
Hence  it  is  that  genius  has  learned  to  adore  that  only 
which  for  ever  soars  above  actual  achievement.  Cicero 
was  alarmed  at  the  representations  of  the  gods  in  sculp- 
ture. "  Who  can  say,"  he  asked,  "  but  that  the  populace 
may  one  day  fancy  that  these  statues  are  the  gods  them- 
selves ?  "  Precisely  that  did  come  to  pass.  The  average 
man  is  unimaginative  ;  his  wings  are  not  strong  enough 
to  sustain  him  in  any  long  flight ;  and  they  can  never 
grow  stronger  if  he  is  permitted  to  drag  down  to  his  own 
level  the  beauty  to  which  he  must  aspire  if  he  would  feel 
its  transforming  power.  The  ideal  is  essentially  that 
which  cannot  be  enclosed  or  shut  in, — not  more  than 
you  can  imprison  the  dawn.  Great  religions  have  tried 
to  put  the  soul  of  man  in  their  creed-closet,  and  heaven 
under  their  lock  and  key.  But  when  they  are  opened 
there  is  a  smell  of  mould  as  if  their  prize  lacked  sunshine 
and  air.  That  religion  seals  its  own  doom  which  binds 
itself  to  a  defunct  ideal.  The  childhood  of  the  world 
was  pleased  with  pictures  of  heaven  which  cannot  satisfy 
maturer  age. 

Can  any  civilised  man's  nature  be  conquered  and 
changed  by  the  prospect  of  sitting  on  a  rosy  cloud  and 
blowing  a  golden  pipe  in  a  heavenly  concert  ?  Why 
even  in  the  east,  where  humanity  is  more  childlike  than 
here,  the  paradise  of  Mohammed — tall  beauties  in  an 
endless  rose-garden — does  not  attract  so  many  souls  as 


i82  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

the  eternal  sleep  promised  by  Buddha.  And  in  Christen- 
dom every  ideal  of  the  future  has  faded  ;  its  immortality 
is  shapeless.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  said,  "  The  future  I 
hope  for  is  Repose.  I  trust  for  at  least  a  thousand  years 
of  unconscious,  undreaming  rest."  A  venerable  and 
eminent  woman,  who  has  devoted  her  life  to  human 
welfare,  said  to  me  recently,  "  I  feel  death  approaching, 
but  it  is  no  enemy.  It  will  bring  me  to  the  end  of  my 
existence  in  Nature.  I  have  considered  the  arguments 
for  immortality,  and  am  convinced  they  are  worthless.  I 
have  no  desire  for  any  heaven  of  which  I  have  heard  or 
read.  But  I  have  my  hope,  my  ideal  of  a  future  life  :  it 
is  that  the  particles  of  which  I  am  composed  may  rise 
again  in  grass  and  bloom  in  flowers,  may  pass  into  the 
general  life  of  nature,  and  go  on  to  benefit  the  world." 
Now,  dear  as  the  hope  of  conscious  survival  beyond  the 
grave  may  be  to  any  of  us,  who  can  fail  to  see  that  this 
aged  woman's  ideal — that  every  particle  of  her  form 
would  continue  to  repeat  the  charities  of  her  life — is  a 
more  religious,  a  more  unselfish  ideal,  than  the  resurrec- 
tion for  an  existence  of  personal  bliss  represented  in  the 
vulgar  heaven?  It  is  true  that  the  idea  of  conscious 
Immortality  is  not  involved  in  the  absurdity  of  bodily 
resurrection.  Certainly  there  may  be  a  very  high  ideal 
which  hopes  for  the  renewal  of  conscious  activity  of  mind 
and  heart.  But  whatever  be  the  dream,  the  salient  fact 
stands  out  that  the  promises  of  theology  are  no  longer 
equal  to  the  promises  of  the  soul :  the  human  ideal  has 
soared  successively  above  the  Valhalla  of  Odin,  the 
heights   of  Olympus,  the   rosy  cloud  with  cherubs  and 


REAL  AND  IDEAL.  183 

trumpets, — far  above  them  all.  The  old  heavens  surround 
us  now,  only  as  the  signs  of  the  zodiac,  dead  because 
smitten  by  the  light  of  a  larger  hope.  And  yet  we  feel 
that  in  each  of  those  forms  the  best  that  is  in  us  once 
lodged.  The  progressive  life  made  each  for  its  mansion, 
unmade  it  when  it  became  a  prison.  No  mere  part  can 
hold  him  who  aspires  to  the  whole. 

But  this,  you  may  say,  is  to  set  us  moving  on  a  vicious 
circle.  Warning  you  by  all  the  extinct  heavens,  whether 
painted  on  the  ether  by  poets,  or  planned  on  earth  by 
visionaries,  that  you  can  never  grasp  the  ideal,  I  still  tell 
you  man  is  born  to  seek  it.  It  is  even  so.  It  is  a  melody 
no  heart  can  live  without,  though  so  often  as  we  listen, 
we  must  say,  "  Thou  tellest  me  of  things  that  in  all  my 
life  I  have  not  known  and  shall  not  know  !"  For  yet 
every  chord  of  our  being  may  vibrate  in  response  to  it, 
and  the  whole  life  may  be  harmonised  by  the  endeavours 
after  the  fuller  expression,  to  which  we  are  drawn  by  every 
intimation  of  a  higher  thought,  or  happier  character, 
or  nobler  aim.  The  better  we  may  reach,  though 
not  the  best ;  but  no  one  ever  found  the  better 
who  did  not  aim  at  the  best.  To  the  mathematician 
the  perfect  circle  is  always  ideal ;  the  truest  circle 
he  can  draw  is  only  proximate ;  yet  had  he  no  ideal 
circle  his  actual  one  would  be  far  more  incomplete.  Now 
the  ideal  and  the  actual  do  not  coincide,  but  they  accord ; 
the  lower  may  be  endlessly  improved,  and  every  step  is 
in  the  direction  of  the  highest ;  the  lines  of  tendency 
which  lead  up  to  that  highest  harmonise  with  it,  as  the 
sides  of  a  pyramid  harmonise  with  the  apex. 


i84  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

In  human  life,  therefore,  tendency  must  always  be  the 
main  thing.  What  is  the  direction  of  a  man's  faculties, 
his  aims?  If  you  know  the  angles  of  convergence  of 
the  sides  of  the  pyramid,  the  point  at  which  they  will 
meet  if  continued  may  be  computed.  If  the  tendencies 
of  life  are  in  the  direction  of  an  ideal  the  apex  may  be 
equally  recognised,  though  it  may  not  be  reached.  In 
youth  our  actual  and  our  ideal  seem  to  be  not  only  dis- 
tinct but  hostile  to  each  other.  But  the  main  lesson  of 
life  is  to  learn  that  they  are  really  friends,  and  culture 
means  the  raising  of  the  law  of  our  lower  nature  into 
harmony  with  the  firmament  of  reason  that  vaults  above 
our  little  world  of  animal  power. 

In  truth,  that  which  may  rightly  be  called  the  ideal  is  a 
force — the  building"  force  in  nature.  No  doubt  it  was  so 
from  the  beginning,  and  that  each  of  the  swarming 
myriads  of  creatures — the  zoophyte  in  its  waterdrop, 
the  moth  shriveling  in  the  candle — has  followed  its  little 
pillar  of  fire,  has  sought  its  promised  land ;  and  so  seek- 
ing has  put  forth  its  supreme  energies,  and  added  its 
infinitesimal  impulse  to  the  grdwing  world  of  form. 
What  kindling  passion  for  the  rose  tinted  the  butterfly, 
what  lowly  idolatry  of  things  soaring  above  it  mingled 
with  the  lower  utility  by  which  creeping  things  gained 
their  wings, — we  know  not ;  what  we  know  is  that  along 
with  the  prosaic  utilitarian  actual  life  which  we  have  in- 
herited from  the  realms  beneath  us,  we  have  drawn  within 
us  the  universal  laws  that  wrought  through  their  uncon- 
sciousness     By  them  man  may  work  to  universal  ends. 

The  best  thing  in  every  noble  dream  is  the  dreamer 


REAL  AND  IDEAL.  185 


himself.  Faust  clutching  at  the  perfect  ideal  of  Greece, 
to  be  thrown  back  on  hard  actuality  ;  the  poor  French 
socialist  with  a  fair  heaven  in  his  brain  and  starvation 
around  him,— represent  Man,  able  to  apprehend  where 
he  cannot  comprehend.  They  leave  us  the  same  old 
earth  rolling  on  as  before,  but  they  have  outlined  a  higher 
Man,  which  the  ages  must  fulfil.  How  sacred  are  they, 
the  seekers  of  the  invisible,  the  wayfarers  who  will  not  rest 
on  anything  short  of  the  beautiful  idea  that  has  ravished 
them  ! 

How  they  go  by— those  strange  and  dreamlike  men! 

One  glance  on  each,  one  gleam  from  out  each  eye, 

And  that  I  never  looked  upon  till  now, 

Has  vanished  out  of  sight  as  instantly. 

Yet  in  it  passed  there  a  whole  heart  and  life. 
The  only  key  it  gave  that  transient  look; 
But  for  this  key  its  great  event  in  time 
Of  peace  or  strife  to  me  a  sealed  book. 

To  a  human  being  his  ideal  represents  his  individual 
existence.  One  life  we  each  have  which  is  merely  here- 
ditary. We  received  it  from  our  ancestors,  we  share  it 
with  others,  it  is  a  common  property.  There  is  another 
life  which  is  our  own.  There  each  stands  in  the  pre- 
sence of  his  own  Sinai,  receives  the  tables  of  the  law  of 
his  individual  life.  To  him  there  comes  a  Decalogue  of 
private  interpretation,  and  the  voice  commands — "See 
that  thou  do  all  things  after  the  pattern  thou  did'st  see 
on  the  mount  !  "  So  indeed  must  he  work— if  the  world 
is  to  be  better  by  a  feather's  weight  for  his  life  in  it ; — so 
must  he  build,  quarrying  his  hereditary  nature,  polishing 
it  for  his  individual  structure.     Nor  shall  he  pause  to 


i86  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

ask  whether  the  edifice  is  to  be  completed  and  adorned, 
and  labour  give  way  to  happiness.  He  cannot  reach  the 
great  end,  because  there  is  no  end  ;  the  scale  is  infinite  ; 
so  have  the  poets  said,  who  reached  the  seeming  summit, 
only  to  behold  a  higher  height  rising  before  them  ever 
more.  Let  it  be  enough  for  each  that  the  genius  of  God 
finds  no  obstruction  in  him  ;  that  he  is  part  of  the  organis- 
ing force  of  the  universe, — as  much  so  as  the  coral 
building  in  the  sea,  or  the  sun  that  vitalises  a  world.  And 
when  his  day  is  past  and  his  bit  of  work  is  done,  the  ideal 
he  has  served  will  whisper  a  sweet  and  secret  joy — Thou 
hast  laboured,  and  others  will  enter  into  thy  labours. 

II.— IDEALISING  THE  REAL. 

We  have  found  "  realising  the  ideal  "  to  be  impracti- 
cable in  the  proportion  that  the  ideal  is  raised  high.  But 
"  idealising  the  real,"  as  I  shall  maintain,  is  not  only 
practicable,  but  the  main  secret  of  the  art  of  living. 

First  I  must  make  my  phrase  clear.  The  word 
"  idealising"  is  sometimes  used  to  mean  the  putting  into 
a  thing  of  what  is  not  in  it.  People  are  said  to  idealise 
a  character  in  the  sense  of  investing  a  person  with 
qualities  they  do  not  possess.  It  is  sometimes  said  of  a 
portrait  that  it  is  idealised,  by  which  is  meant  that  the 
artist  has  flattered  the  subject  of  it.  But  this  is  a  loose 
way  of  using  a  good  word.  We  have  words  which 
directly  signify  the  investment  of  a  thing  with  fictitious 
values, — to  exaggerate,  to  flatter — and  we  need  not 
confuse  with  these  the  word  "  idealise,"  which  means  to 


REAL  AND  IDEAL.  187 

see  a  thing  in  the  form  of  pure  thought.  There  is 
nothing  that  has  not  a  real  relation  to  thought,  nothing 
without  its  ideal  side.  Take,  for  example,  the  portrait 
which  an  artist  is  said  to  have  flattered.  If  he  has 
flattered  it  he  has  connected  with  his  subject  something 
incongruous  with  it,  as  much  so  as  if  he  had  painted  a 
thistle  to  make  it  look  partly  like  a  rose.  The  only  true 
portrait  that  artist  would  have  painted  would  be  himself, 
and  it  would  show  him  no  true  artist.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  he  idealised  the  face,  it  might  appear  on  his 
canvas  more  attractive  than  the  subject  seems  to  an 
ordinary  eye.  That  would  show  that  the  artist  had 
looked  on  his  subject  with  an  extraordinary  eye, — had 
searched  into  it,  seen  it  in  its  best  light,  interpreted  its 
deeper  characteristics.  A  great  portrait-painter  was  once 
asked  if,  in  the  large  number  who  sat  to  him,  he  did  not 
find  many  faces  that  were  totally  uninteresting  or  even 
repulsive.  He  replied,  "  I  never  had  to  paint  a  face  which 
did  not  possess  lines  and  meanings  beyond  my  power 
to  seize  and  portray."  That  artist  had  cultivated  the 
power  of  true  idealisation,  that  is  of  seeing  beneath  the 
surface  and  getting  at  the  subtle  spirit  which  requires 
interpretation. 

Another  new  commandment  our  age  gives  unto  us — 
that  we  stick  to  the  truth.  In  no  case  must  we  exceed 
the  simple  fact ;  but,  also,  in  no  case  must  we  fall  short 
of  the  fact ;  and  if  we  fulfil  this  rule  we  shall  find  that 
every  fact  has  its  own  ideality.  If  a  reality  is  dry  it  is 
because  we  see  it  only  in  part,  detached  from  its  large 
relationship.     I  was  one  of  a  company  which  assembled 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


to  hear  a  favourite  lecturer.  But  we  were  generally  dis- 
appointed when  we  learned  the  subject  to  which  we 
were  to  listen.  It  was  "  \\Tiitworth's  planes,  standard 
measures  and  guns."  We  were  for  the  most  part  in- 
different to  ironclads  and  guns,  and  had  a  misgiving  that 
not  even  the  eloquence  of  Professor  Tyndall  could  make 
them  interesting.  But  we  were  mistaking  the  subject. 
With  breathless  interest  the  gentlemen  present,  and 
ladies  as  well,  followed  the  story  of  how  an  humble 
toolmaker  had  begun  in  poverty  and  loneliness  the  work 
of  mastering  the  secrets  of  iron  and  steel ;  how  little  by 
little  he  had  secured  a  plane  of  perfect  level ;  had  made  a 
measure  that  would  measure  the  millionth  part  of  an 
inch,  and  enabled  the  wonderful  plexus  of  nerves  in  the 
finger  to  appreciate  a  movement  to  the  extent  of  that 
millionth  of  an  inch ;  had  discovered  the  method  of 
reducing  steel  to  a  hardness  that  no  force  of  explosion 
could  affect,  and  the  exact  curves  by  which  a  ball  would 
accumulate  the  highest  attainable  propelling  power.  A 
lady  remarked  that  after  hearing  this  lecture  it  seemed 
almost  a  fine  thing  to  die  by  one  of  Whitworth's  guns  ! 
The  charm  was  that  each  dry  fact  mirrored  universal 
laws :  the  stars  in  their  courses  attended  those  iron 
balls.  The  brutal  art  of  war,  as  the  Professor  called  it, 
was  hidden  out  of  sight  by  the  splendid  play  of  laws  and 
forces  which  showed  our  age  of  iron  in  travail  with  an 
age  of  light.  The  audience  had  thought  they  knew  some- 
thing about  iron,  and  quite  enough  about  cannon  :  what 
they  knew  was  the  mere  surface,  the  dismal  dexterities  of 
slaughter.     What  had  science  now  done  ?     Simply  trans- 


REAL  AND  IDEAL.  189 

lated  the  facts  to  their  ideas  ;  and  thereby  given  us  each 
a  new  eye  to  see  what  was  really  there,  and  what  will 
remain  there  to  fulfil  the  possibilities  of  civilisation  when 
the  poor  surface-uses  of  to-day  have  passed  away,  and 
nations  learn  war  no  more. 

Other  things  equally  savage  in  their  original  purpose 
have  already  attained  a  complete  translation  into  thought. 
Barbarians  took  infinite  pains  to  shape  weapons  of  flint 
by  which  to  slay  each  other :  their  only  use  now  is  that 
which  scholars  may  find,  they  are  purely  anthropolo- 
gical ;  from  those  once  deadly  arrows  is  being  read  the 
story  of  primitive  man.  And  now  again  cunning  Nature 
entices  nations  to  vast  outlays  of  wealth  and  enterprise 
with  promise  of  securing  a  gun  or  ship  stronger  than 
their  neighbours'.  But  when  all  those  immediate  ends 
and  uses  have  passed  away,  when  they  have  followed 
the  flints  into  the  museum,  the  ideas  in  them,  the  grand 
truths  will  expand  aboye  their  shrivelled  antiquity  to  de- 
corate an  era  of  love  and  reason. 

To  idealise  the  real  means  to  see  things  as  they  are. 
Coleridge  said  there  is  a  suggestion  of  immortality  in  the 
fact  that  every  emotion  is  greater  than  that  which  gives 
rise  to  it.  We  all  know  how  a  slight  incident,  a  small 
suggestion,  a  word,  may  set  in  motion  large  feelings,  and 
great  purposes.  This  fact  shows  that  each  thing — whether 
it  be  visible,  as  a  flower  ;  or  audible,  as  a  word  ;  or  entirely 
subjective,  as  a  pain  ;  or  however  little  it  may  be — has 
an  element  in  it  related  to  the  whole  of  our  mind ;  an 
element  of  ideality  which  enables  it  to  awaken  the  ideality 
within  us,  like  a  single  note  sung  over  the  strings  of  a  piano 


igo  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

to  which  they  all  sing  back  again  in  the  same  pitch,  but 
gathering  up  related  harmonies. 

It  is  an  error  to  think  that  when  any  outward  thing  is 
idealised  it  is  simply  an  individual  mind  that  does  the 
whole  work  :  no  object  can  be  idealised  if  no  idea  is  in  it. 
If  I  speak  of  intellectual  light,  is  it  alia  conceit?  Might 
the  human  race  have  just  as  properly  agreed  to  call 
knowledge  darkness, — say,  because  it  brings  out  the  stars  ? 
This  indeed  would  have  been  a  conceit,  a  mere  fancy. 
But  when  knowledge  is  called  light  it  is  a  true  imagina- 
tion :  the  mind  of  man  has  flashed  back  all  the  way  to  its 
genuine  origin,  the  actual  light  of  which  the  thought  of 
man  is  the  fullest,  the  only  real  expression.  Or  take  some 
smaller  thing,  the  scarabgeus,  which  the  Egyptians  con- 
secrated as  a  ty[)e  of  earthly  and  celestial  existence.  Was 
it  a  mere  conceit  ?  Was  there  no  real  connection  between 
the  beetle  and  the  belief  in  immortality?  The  connection 
was  most  real.  The  beetle  deposits  its  egg  in  a  little  round 
ball  of  earth  ;  buries  that  ball,  and  then  perishes ;  when 
the  winter  has  passed,  and  the  earth  is  renewed,  out  of 
the  little  grave  where  the  egg  was  deposited  comes  a  tiny 
burnished  scarabseus.  Now,  if  you  analyse  man's  belief 
in  immortality  you  find  that  it  is  simply  his  dislike  of 
mortality  :  he  desires  to  live  to-day,  to-morrow,  as  long  as 
he  can,  to  prolong  and  reproduce  himself  in  offspring,  in 
fanie  and  family.  Man's  sense  of  immortality  expresses 
all  the  variations  of  the  longing  for  renewal  and  survival ; 
and  the  same  longing  may  be  traced  from  the  conscious 
to  the  unconscious,  a  principle  in  nature  nowhere  more 
strikingly  illustrated  than  in  the  scarabceus  whose  little 


REAL  AND  IDEAL.  191 

life  is  summed  up  in  the  seed  it  buries  with  hope  of  resur- 
rection. These  things  are  not  coincidences  in  nature ; 
rather  they  are  correspondences ;  the  outward  world  ex- 
presses the  inward  because  the  one  grew  out  of  the  other. 
George  Herbert  wrote  : — 

Herbs  gladly  cure  our  flesh  because  that  they 
Find  their  acquaintance  there. 

And  he  might  have  gone  further  than  flesh  ;  he  might  have 
affirmed  that  the  outward  world  in  organising  our  body, 
brains,  senses,  did  even  then  but  climb  to  its  bud  ;  that 
beyond  this  there  was  to  be — there  has  been — the  ex- 
pansion of  the  visible  bud  to  an  invisible  flower  ;  but  in 
that  sacred  flower — mind — coloured  with  celestial  light, 
there  is  not  a  tint  nor  a  fragrant  character  but  has  been 
drawn  from  the  whole  universe.  And  in  the  mind  which 
each  contributed  to  constitute  each  must  now  find  its  in- 
terpretation. Man's  mind  is  an  epitome  of  the  universe, 
and  while  his  intellect  draws  universal  laws  within  to  make 
the  order  of  reason,  those  very  same  universal  laws  are 
controlling  every  outward  atom — every  leaf,  sand-grain, 
dewdrop — and  are  reflected  in  them  as  genuinely  as  in  the 
mind  of  man.  It  is  that  which  makes  science  possible — 
the  order  of  nature  answering  to  the  order  of  thought ; 
which  Kepler  devoutedly  realised  when,  exploring  the 
heavens,  he  cried,  "  Great  God  !  I  think  thy  thoughts  after 
thee  ! "  Therefore  each  thing  holds  a  secret  for  the  mind ; 
only  when  it  has  passed  into  thought,  has  anything  told  all 
that  is  in  it ;  only  when  divested  of  what  is  casual,  and  set 
where  the  collective  light  of  All  plays  through  and  through 


192  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

it,  is  it  idealised  and  so  seen  fitted  to  its  place  in  the 
Cosmos. 

Man's  dream  of  Heaven,  whenever  noble,  is  a  transcen- 
dent vision  of  this  world  idealised.  The  proverb  says, 
familiarity  breeds  contempt ;  to  which  one  has  fairly  added 
— in  the  contemptible.  Poets  have  found  the  law  of  the 
stars  at  work  in  the  daisies.  Consider  again  Socrates' 
dream  of  an  ethereal  world  inhabited  by  perfected  human 
beings.  Since  Socrates'  time  man  has  ascended  to  a 
higher  world  :  telescopes  have  shown  us  the  stars  as  they 
are;  we  have  measurably  abolished  the  atmospheric 
ocean ;  we  have  actually,  by  science  and  art,  gained  the 
larger  part  of  Socrates'  heaven,  and  have  a  fair  chance  of 
reaching  the  rest  of  it.  Certainly  we  have  learned  that 
the  man  makes  a  great  mistake  who  waits  for  his  heaven 
until  he  dies.  Whatever  world  may  succeed  this,  it  will 
find  man  or  his  molecules  still  environed  by  -  laws  and 
conditions  which  must  be  patiently  fulfilled  ere  he  or 
they  can  attain  unto  truth  or  beauty.  If  he  anywhere 
finds  a  heaven  it  will  be  because  he  can  make  it.  And 
he  can  begin  here  and  now  as  well  as  there  and  then. 
Indeed  if  he  can  shape  no  heaven  out  of  the  materials  he 
has  here,  there  is  little  reason  for  hoping  he  will  do  any 
better  elsewhere.  All  this  postponement  of  joy  to  a 
future  life ;  all  this  vain  imagination  of  supreme  good- 
ness to  be  reached  .through  providential  favour  instead 
of  patient  moral  culture;  of  baseness  arbitrarily  raised  to 
excellence,  and  ignorance  to  divine  knowledge  ;  all  this, 
and  the  method  of  it — bending  of  knees,  movement  of 
lips,  fawning  on  gods — comes  within  the  category  of  the 


REAL  AND  IDEAL.  I93 


vain  effort  to  realise  the  ideal  by  snatching  at  it.     It  is 
an  effort  to  outwit  the  internal  laws  that  must  for  ever 

fail. 

When  Faust  beheld  the  personification  of  intellectual 
beauty— the  Greek  Helena— and  sought  to  grasp  her, 
she  instantly  faded  away.  He  was  hurled  back  to  the 
old  attic  where  he  started.  But  then  the  scholar  began 
his  real  quest  for  that  ideal  which  he  had  seen  in  his 
highest  moment.  Through  long  and  patient  study,  by 
learning  all  the  conditions  through  which  Greek  art  had 
evolved  that  ideal — through  sorrow,  toil,  obedience — he 
at  last  finds  Helena  again.  Then  again  she  fades  away ; 
but  her  raiment  dissolves  into  a  light  cloud  which  sur- 
rounds him,  and  bears  him  away  to  a  country  where  the 
earth  is  rich  and  a  race  of  idlers  dwell.  Marshes,  stag- 
nant pools,  invade  the  land  whose  rank  luxuriance  reveals 
its  equal  potency  for  good.  Here,  cries  Faust,  is  my  possi- 
ble Paradise  !  He  calls  to  the  people  to  aid.  The  marsh 
shall  be  drained.  The  people  shall  be  healthy,  happy, 
free.  He  sees  free  man  treading  the  fair  earth.  In  work- 
ing for  Humanity  ends  his  long  search  for  the  ideal.  He 
claims  that  as  his  supreme  moment,  and  sinks  in  happy 
death  to  the  blossoming  earth  he  had  found  a  wilderness. 
Mephistopheles  calls  up  all  his  demons  to  clutch  the 
dying  man  ;  but  angels  pelt  the  demons  with  roses.  The 
roses  sting  them  like  flames.  They  depart  baffled.  No 
powers  of  evil  can  reach  the  man  who  has  found  his  ideal 
and  his  happiness  in  the  service  of  Humanity.  No  demons 
of  pain  or  remorse  can  grasp  him  whose  defence  is  the 
roses  he  has  evoked  from  thorns. 

'3 


194  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

Such,  then,  was  the  ripe  conduslon  of  Goethe — the 
master-interpreter  of  the  modern  world,  who  had  sounded 
all  the  depths  and  shoals  of  it :  man's  life  is  idealised  by 
his  living  for  others,  in  the  sense  of  living  for  those  high 
principles  by  which  others  may  be  raised  to  order  and 
liberty.  Life  is  idealised  by  being  the  organ  of  ideas. 
No  man  can  feel  his  life  to  be  poor  or  frivolous  when  he 
is  consecrating  it  to  high  human  aims.  Nor  is  what  he 
can  give  poor,  however  little  in  the  sight  of  men.  It  is 
given  to  but  few  to  reform  empires,  but  it  is  the  privilege 
of  all  to  do  their  best.  Our  little' life  begins  to  shine 
in  that  moment  when  it  is  directed  to  a  high  purpose. 
But  there  must  be  no  ambition,  no  straining  to  do  more 
than  we  can.  A  philosopher  observed  that  his  neighbour, 
a  farmer,  who  went  with  his  waggon  to  market  was  ex- 
tremely anxious  not  to  be  cheated,  and  one  day  told  him 
that  when  he  became  just  as  anxious  not  to  cheat  any- 
body else,  his  market  waggon  would  be  as  noble  as  the 
chariot  of  the  sun.  And  no  man  has  a  lot  in  life  too 
humble  if  it  become  ennobled  by  high  principles.  If  he 
have  honesty  and  self-respect  and  independence,  let  him 
be  content  ;  nobody  has  anything  better. 

There  is  a  wise  sentence  in  the  otherwise  trifling  opera 
of  the  "  Grand  Duchess,"  which  says,  "  If  we  can't  get 
what  we  set  our  hearts  on,  we  must  set  our  hearts  on 
what  we  can  get."  If  we  set  true  hearts  on  what  is 
around  us,  our  life  will  reflect  beauty  as  a  violet  raises  the 
sod  to  bear  the  tint  of  the  sky.  The  good  workman 
will  not  quarrel  with  his  tools,  if  they  are  the  best  he  can 
reach.     I  fear  it  is  a  very  common  error  to  overlook 


REAL  AND  IDEAL, 


'95 


attainable  resources  for  the  unattainable.  Are  we  making 
our  lives  commonplace  by  not  setting  our  hearts 
thoroughly  upon  the  reality  we  have  ?  The  proverb  says, 
''  Everj'  man  thinks  his  own  geese  swans  ;"  but  it  is  oftener 
the  other  way — people  are  too  apt  to  think  their  swans 
only  geese.  It  is  much  better  to  idealise  your  geese  than 
to  despise  your  swans.  And  if  a  man  fully  appreciates 
his  goose  he  r*eed  not  covet  any  swan  whatever. 

Now,  let  us  briefly  analyse  the  operation  of  a  warm- 
hearted devotion  to  some  high  cause  or  truth  in  making  our 
lives  beautiful  in  our  own  eyes.  It  raises  our  interest  above 
that  plane  of  self-love  where  most  of  our  wounds  are  re- 
ceived ;  it  removes  our  sources  of  happiness  to  high  regions 
not  to  be  invaded  by  the  disagreeable  details  that  vulga- 
rise existence.  If  life  seems  coarse  or  ugly  it  is  because  we 
do  not  see  it  with  sufficient  perspective.  We  are  too  close 
to  its  petty  details.  How  beautiful  to  the  aged  appear 
the  days  of  childhood  !  What  delight  in  those  hours  so 
free  from  care  !  What  a  flower-fringed  path  through  all 
that  green  meadow  !  Ah,  there  you  have  perspective. 
The  little  worries,  the  disgraces,  the  tears  of  that  time 
are  lost  in  the  distance.  And  if  we  could  only  live  long 
enough  this  time  through  which  we  are  now  passing  would 
appear  just  so  beautiful, — its  heaviest  cares  softened  to 
mere  shadings  in  the  distant  dream-like  picture.  I  sub- 
mit that  it  is  a  very  serious  thing  we  should  see  the  full 
beauty  of  our  lives  only  when  they  are  past,  or  in  visions 
of  a  possible  future.  What  we  most  need  is  to  see  and 
feel  the  beauty  and  joy  of  today.  Does  time  alone  sup- 
ply the  needed  perspective  ?     Does  length  of  days  alone 


196  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

unmask  the  moment  whose  glory  is  disguised  in  amass  of 
miserable  worries?  Solomon  says  No,  but  wisdom  is  as 
gray  hairs  to  those  who  possess  it.  Then  by  what  art 
can  we  reach  a  point  from  which  we  shall  behold  life 
clothed  in  ideal  tints  ? 

Richard  Wagner,  the  composer,  has  devoted  his  life 
and  his  genius  to  the  work  of  blending  the  real  and  the 
ideal  in  a  combination  of  the  arts.  He  has  the  happy 
fortune  of  obtaining  the  means  of  accomplishing  the 
utmost  that  any  man  can  hope  for.  He  built  a  theatre 
such  as  he  requires  ;  he  had  true  poetry  for  his  opera  as 
well  as  true  music,  and  he  had  the  best  voices  and 
musicians,  and  also  scenery  painted  by  artists.  Now  in 
his  effort  to  enchain  his  spectators  with  an  illusion,  so 
that  they  shall  be  moved  by  the  emotions  portrayed,  his 
great  difficulty  had  been  to  contrive  some  means  of 
shutting  out  of  sight  the  mere  accidents  of  his  perform- 
ance,— the  incidental  means,  the  small  details.  How 
can  the  audience  help  looking  at  the  conductor,  or  ad- 
miring the  particular  scraping  of  this  or  that  violinist  ? 
Or  how  can  they  fail  to  criticise  this  or  that  design  of  the 
scenery  ?  The  artist  aims  at  producing  a  general  effect 
which  shall  swallow  up  all  these  means  and  minutiag. 
And  he  attained  his  end  by  the  means  devised  at 
Bayreuth.  In  the  first  place  he  entirely  concealed  his 
orchestra,  so  that  the  music  should  be  as  a  subtle  vapour 
stealing  no  one  knows  whence.  In  the  next  place  he 
placed  two  proscenia — wide  and  separate  spaces — between 
the  stage  and  the  front  row  of  seats,  which  made  the 
distance  seem  greater  than  it  really  was.     The  largest  of 


REAL  AND  IDEAL.  197 

these  he  called  the  "  Mystic  Gulf,"  as  visibly  separating 
the  real  from  the  ideal  only  to  reunite  them  invisibly. 
All  these  were  efforts  at  perspective — musical  and  scenic — 
contrived  to  detach  the  pure  artistic  effect  from  entangle- 
ment with  its  details  and  machinery.  It  was  an  effort  to 
show  the  flame  without  its  smoke,  as  far  as  possible. 
How  wonderful  the  success,  the  world  now  knows.  Now 
why  should  we  not  take  equal  pains  for  the  perfection  of 
life  ?  The  details  of  life  m.ust  exist,  the  cares  of  the  day 
be  met ;  but  surely  we  need  not  be  their  victims ;  they 
should  be  ours. 

When  Christ  in  his  dark  hour  saw  of  the  travail  of  his 
soul  and  was  satisfied,  he  reduced  the  crown  of  thorns  to 
a  mere  detail.  He  was  not  the  victim  of  the  cross  ;  it 
was  his  victim  ;  he  was  ^v^apped  up  in  a  great  aim  which 
caught  up  the  thorn  and  the  cross,  and  made  them  good 
shades  in  a  grand  picture. 

The  sages  teach  us  that  at  a  certain  elevation  of  the 
mind  in  reason  and  right  the  littlenesses  of  life  disappear, 
and  its  unavoidable  troubles  diminish.  The  great  aim 
becomes  the  centre.  It  absorbs,  more  and  more,  feeling, 
heart,  brain.  'Tis  a  star  that  never  recedes.  What  if 
this  man  deceives  us  ;  some  scheme  fails  ;  poverty  over 
takes  us?  That  star  will  climb  on.  Truth  will  not 
deceive.  Reason  will  not  err.  No  thief  will  purloin  the 
treasures  of  thought,  nor  moth  corrupt  the  puritv  of  love. 
All  the  worth  laid  up  there  will  stay  there.  Tife  will 
grow  ideal.  Commonplace  will  become  uncommon  like 
the  bit  of  bone  ot  chalk  from  which  a  scholar  reads  a 
chapter  of  Nature.     Sorrows  will  change  from  poisonous 


198  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

to  healing  plants,  yielding  experience.  The  gay  flowers 
of  life — mirth,  play,  relaxation — will  leave  the  fragrance  of 
wisdom.  All  this  will  ensue  when  life,  instead  of  aiming 
merely  at  getting  on,  at  ostentation,  and  self, — turning 
to  ends  what  should  be  means, — becomes  so  identified 
with  the  work  of  reason  and  right,  that  the  small  round  of 
affairs  is  illumined  by  their  light,  and  every  reality  unfolds 
its  ideal. 


xii. 


THE    ANGEL    OF   DEATH. 


THE  ANGEL   OF   DEATH. 


OT  long  ago  there  was  some  agitation  in  France 
concerning  the  refusal    of  the  authorities    to 

'  permit  militar)'  honours  to  be  paid  to  deceased 
members  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  unless  they  were 
buried  by  the  Church.  A  good  many  of  the  Legion  are 
Liberals,  and  they  resented  this  infraction  of  their  rights. 
The  Government  had  to  give  way.  But,  in  doing  so,  the 
minister  said  that  though  many  gentlemen  had  outgrown 
their  belief  in  the  importance  of  church  ceremonials  at 
death,  the  Government  must  insist  on  retaining  such 
ceremonials  in  the  case  of  the  common  soldier.  For,  he 
said,  faith  in  the  future  life  promised  by  the  Church  is 
the  soldier's  strength  ;  he  could  be  trusted  for  readiness 
to  die  only  so  long  as  he  had  perfect  faith  in  immortality. 
No  doubt  this  frank  statement  is  in  part  true.  Certainly 
in  most  of  the  wars  in  which  French  soldiers  have  been 
called  on  to  sacrifice  themselves,  there  has  been  little  to 
sustain  them  except  the  faith  in  immortality.  The  old 
saying  is,  "  All  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life ; " 
and  they  dread  death  least  who  believe  that  they  part 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


with  it  for  paradise,  or  for  what  they  prize  as-  much  as 
paradise.  But  nowhere  more  than  in  France  have  been 
found  examples  of  how  men,  beHeving  in  no  future  life, 
may  be  willing  to  sacrifice  their  lives  for  a  cause,  which 
stands  to  them  for  paradise.  Of  all  the  revolutionists 
who  there  have  died,  from  the  great  French  revolution 
to  the  Commune,  probably  not  one-third  believed  in  any 
future  life  at  all.  Powerful  passions,  deep  indignation 
against  wrong,  moral  enthusiasm,  have  often  shown  their 
power  to  conquer  the  love  of  life, 

The  desire  to  live  is  natural  and  healthy.  It  is  a  part 
of  the  general  preservative  force  in  nature.  By  natural 
selection  those  organisms  live  longest  which  are  most 
tenacious  of  life,  and  their  vitality  is  inherited  cumula- 
tively. But  the  terror  of  death  is  not  so  easily  explained. 
For  it  has  been  just  as  long  the  law  of  nature  that  men 
shall  die  as  that  they  shall  live  ;  and  it  would  seem  to  be 
a  normal  development  that  the  familiar  and  uniform  lasv 
of  death  should  be  recognised  with  calmness  and,  when 
inevitable,  with  pleasure. 

I  believe  the  horror  of  death,  wherever  it  exceeds  the 
natural  desire  to  live,  has  been  artificially  produced  in 
our  nature,  and  artificially  propagated.  We  have  all 
been  moulded  by  the  ages  that  preceded  us,  and  their 
notions  often  survive  in  our  feeling  long  after  they  have 
passed  out  of  our  intellects. 

Shakspere  has  portrayed  with  tremendous  power  the 
fear  of  death  in  "  Measure  for  Measure."  Young  Claudio 
lies  in  his  dungeon,  sentenced  to  a  death  from  which  he 
can  escape  only  by  his  sister's   dishonour.      His  own 


THE  ANGEL  OF  DEA  TIT.  203 


sister  must  lay  before  him  the  alternatives — his  and  her 
dishonour,  or  his  death  on  the  morrow.  She  would  per- 
suade him  that  "  the  sense  of  death  is  most  in  apprehen- 
sion," but  Claudio  sighs  out  "  death  is  a  fearful  thing." 
"  And  shamed  life  a  hateful,"  says  Isabel.  *'  Ay,"  says 
Claudio, — 

Ay,  but  to  die,  and  go  we  know  not  where  ; 

To  lie  in  cold  obstruction,  and  to  rot ; 

This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become 

A  kneaded  clod  ;  and  the  de-lighted  spirit 

To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 

In  thrilling  region  of  thick-ribbed  ice  ; 

To  be  imprisoned  in  the  viewless  winds, 

And  blown  with  violence  round  about 

Tlie  pendent  world  ;  or  to  be  worse  than  worst 

Of  those,  that  lawless  and  incertain  thoughts 

Imagine  howling  ! — 'tis  too  horrible  ! 

The  weariest  and  most  loathed  worldly  life 

That  age,  ache,  penury,  and  imprisonment 

Can  lay  on  nature,  is  a  paradise 

To  what  we  fear  of  death. 

In  all  these  wild  apprehensions  of  Claudio  there  is  no 
thought  of  annihilation.  What  if  he  had  seen  death  as 
an  eternal  sleep, — no  terrors  beyond  ?  The  same  great 
master  has  left  us  his  interpretation  of  what  that  aspect 
of  death  would  be  : — 

To  die, — to  sleep, — 
No  more ;  and,  by  a  sleep,  to  say  we  end 
The  heartache,  and  the  thousand  natural  shocks 
That  flesh  is  heir  to, — 'tis  a  cousummation 
Devoutly  to  be  wished. 

Hamlet  concludes  that  all  who  are  in  trouble  would 


204  IDOLS  AAD  IDEALS. 

seek  death  were  it  only  sleep,  and  but  for  the  dread  that 
they  may  fly  from  the  ills  they  have  to  others  they  know 
not  of.  Euripides'  Macaria,  about  to  be  sacrificed;  hopes 
that  death  will  be  an  eternal  repose.  To  the  natural 
healthy  heart  of  man  there  would  be  no  horrors  about 
death  in  itself  There  are  painful  incidents  at  which 
all  would  shudder, — untimely  death,  the  cutting  short 
of  happiness,  or  the  accidents  of  physical  suffering ;  but 
if  there  were  no  agonies  and  no  apprehensions,  the 
dying  would  look  serenely  upon  death  as  a  friend  leading 
them  to  a  quiet  place  where  the  weary  are. at  rest. 

In  early  ages  priests  did  not  find  in  fear  of  death  a 
sufficient  sanction  for  their  authority.  They  might  have 
proclaimed  immortality  for  the  good  and  annihilation  for 
the  wicked ;  but  apparently  .they  found  numbers  who 
preferred  annihilation.  The  largest  religions  have  pro- 
mised individual  absorption  in  a  divine  essence  ;(like 
Brahmanism),  or  the  unconscious  bliss  of  absolute 
repose  (like  Buddhism),  or  the  cup  of  Lethe.  Be- 
tween the  distant  ages  of  such  simple  faith  in  death 
and  ourselves  lie  a  vast  series  of  hells  conjured  up  to 
affright  mankind  with  the  dread  of  something  beyond 
death.  Between  the  shade  and  gentle  Lethe  other  rivers 
were  imagined  in  which  it  might  suffer  long — 

Abhorred  Styx,  the  flood  of  deadly  hate  ; 
Sad  Acheron  of  sorrow,  black  and  deep  ; 
Cocytus,  named  of  lamentation  loud 
Heard  on  the  rueful  ^stream  :  fierce  Phlegethon 
Whose  waves  of  torrent  fire  inflame  with  rage. 

Two  other  horrors  may  be  named.     One  is  from  Egypt, 


THE  ANGEL  OF  DEA  TH.  205 

and  has  just  been  deciphered  from  an  old  tablet  in  the 
British  Museum.  It  is  the  abode  of  Nin-ki-gal,  the 
Queen  of  Death. 

To  the  house  men  enter,  but  can  not  depart  from  ; 

To  the  road  men  go — but  cannot  return. 

The  abode  of  darkness  and  famine, 

Where  earth  is  their  food, — their  nourishm.ent  clay. 

Light  is  not  seen  ;  in  darkness  they  dwell 

Ghosts  like  birds  flutter  their  wings  there 

On  the  door  and  the  gateposts  the  dust  lies  undisturbed. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  the  description  of  the  abode  of  the 
goddess  of  death  as  it  was  believed  by  our  own  more 
direct  ancestors.  It  is  taken  from  the  Edda.  "  Her 
hall  is  called  Elvidnir,  the  region  of  cold  storms  :  hunger 
is  her  table  ;  starvation  her  knife ;  delay  her  man  ;  slow- 
ness her  maid  ;  precipice  her  threshold ;  care  her  bed ; 
burning  anguish  her  tapestry.  One  half  of  her  body  is 
flesh,  the  rest  that  of  a  livid  corpse." 

One  can  feel  certain  that  the  human  race  could  not  go 
on  for  many  ages  believing  such  things  as  these  without 
their  getting  pretty  deeply  engraved  upon  the  general 
protoplasm. 

But  when  our  fathers  left  that  faith  it  was  only  to  take 
on  another  nearly  as  bad,  except  that  there  seemed  some 
chance  of  final  escape.  Moreover,  it  is  a  comparatively 
modern  opinion  that  people  go  at  once  to  hell  or  heaven 
after  death.  All  except  a  few  saints  went  into  a  limbo  very 
much  like  that  horrid  region  described  on  the  Egyptian 
tablet,  and  got  out  of  it  only  by  slow  and  costly  means. 
So  under  Christianity  death  still  remained  the  King  of 
Terrors.     There  is  a  missal  at  Worms,  nearly  a  thousand 


2o6  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


years  old,  containing  a  picture  of  Christ  conquering  Death. 
Death  is  a  hideous  man,  he  is  prostrate  under  Christ's  feet:, 
he  is  bound  with  a  chain,  the  cross  is  thrust  as  a  spear 
into  his  mouth,  which  vomits  flames.  Such  was  the 
picture  that  succeeded  that  contest  of  Siegfried  with  the 
dragon  or  worm  which  gave  Worms  its  name.  Chris- 
tianity brought  into  Europe  this  type  of  death — the  law 
of  all  organized  nature.  But  this  fire-breathing  death 
may  be  traced  back  to  his  origin  in  the  Assyrian  Angel 
of  Death,  Asrael.  In  the  early  ages  he  was  by  no  means 
conceived  of  as  a  monster  to  be  chained,  but  as  the 
faithful  messenger  of  the  gods.  The  first  fables  speak  of 
him  only  as  the  Inevitable.  Thus,  when  Solomon  was 
conversing  with  a  friend,  Asrael  passed  by  and  looked 
fixedly  upon  the  man  ;  who,  seeing  it  was  the  Angel  of 
Death,  was  seized  with  fear,  and  asked  Solomon  to  use 
his  magic  power  and  transport  him  to  India.  Solomon 
having  done  so,  Asrael  drew  near  and  said,  "  I  was 
gazing  on  the  man  with  you  in  surprise,  for  I  had  been 
ordered  to  seek  him  in  India."  Asrael  was  believed  to 
mingle  death  in  the  cup  of  those  he  w-as  to  slay,  from 
which  came  the  phrase  "  to  taste  of  death  ;"  it  was  the 
cup  which  Jesus  prayed  might  pass  from  him,  and  it  sur- 
vives in  the  memorial  chalice  of  his  death. 

But  gradually  under  that  development  of  dualism  which 
divided  up  the  universe  into  two  hostile  camps — God  and 
Devil — there  were  imagined  two  Angels  of  Death.  To 
Asrael,  or  as  the  Rabbis  said,  Sammael,  was  assigned 
the  work  of  tearing  the  souls  of  the  wicked  painfully 
from  their  bodies ;  while  to  Gabriel  was   assigned  the 


THE  ANGEL  OF  DEA  TH. 


207 


work  of  removing  the  souls  of  the  righteous  tenderly. 
Thus  we  read  in  the  Koran — 

By  tlie  angels  who  tear  forth  the  souls  of  some  with  violence, 
And  by  those  who  draw  forth  the  souls  of  others  with  gentlensss. 

From  tliat  came  the  superstition  which  has  surrounded 
the  death-beds  of  so-called  infidels  with  fancied  horrors. 
For  the  original  Angel  of  D.eath  was  swiftly  identified 
with  Satan,  and  supposed  always  to  come  and  claim  his 
own.  It  is  said  in  the  New  Testament  that  to  Satan  was 
given  the  power  of  death,  whereas  in  the  Book  of  Job, 
Satan  was  allowed  to  do  all  except  touch  Job's  life.  So 
was  gradually  built  the  edifice  of  superstition  crowned  at 
last  with  the  wild  delusion  that  death  is  the  effect  of  a 
god's  deliberate  curse  ! 

Death  was  thus  fairly  degraded  from  an  angel  to  a 
demon,  dwelling  in  a  dark  valley, — the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  Death, — that  "outer  darkness"  spoken  of 
by  Christ.  It  seemed  hard  at  first  to  reconcile  this  outer 
darkness  with  so  much  fire  as  Satan  was  said  to  use,  but 
it  was  concluded  that  this  abode  was  a  place  where  heat 
and  cold  alternated — the  victims  suffering  perpetual  ague 
and  fever,  now  seized  with  shivering  and  gnashing 
(chattering)  of  teeth,  and  now  consumed  with  heat  and 
begging  a  drop  of  water  for  their  parched  tongues. 
These  things  may  seem  antiquarian  to  many,  and  in  one 
sense  they  are  ;  but  in  an  important  sense  they  belong  to 
our  own  moral  constitution.  Every  one  of  these  various 
terrors  associated  with  death  are  refiectcd  in  those 
phantoms  which  besieged  Shakspere's  Claudio  in  his 
dungeon.     He  saw  his  soul  a^^ighted — that  is  unlighted, 


2o8  IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 

darkened,  first  bathed  in  fiery  floods,  then  prisoned  in 
thick-ribbed  ice.  These  were  common  EngHsh  phantasms 
but  a  little  time  ago,  and,  although  they  have  been  dis- 
credited by  the  intelligent,  the  impress  they  left  on  human 
nerves  still  lingers  in  many  a  strong  man's  vague  horror 
of  death. 

IL 

What  has  been  bred  into  us  artificially  may  be  culti- 
vated out  of  us.  The  love  of  life  is  meant  to  preserve 
us  just  so  long  as  life  has  more  happiness  than  misery  in 
it.  We  owe  great  honour  to  those  reformers  and  men  of 
science  who  wage  war  against  the  death  which  mingles 
its  cup  in  the  gin-shop,  in  the  murderous  adulterations 
of  food  and  drink, — cups  mingled  by  the  real  Asraels  of 
the  land.  All  honour  to  those  who  analyze  the  air  and 
the  water,  that  mankind  may  not  prematurely  taste  of 
death.  The  combat  with  disease,  pain,  and  death,  is  a 
holy  war.  It  appears  that,  to  some  minds,  recent  dis- 
coveries of  the  laws  of  heredity  have  presented  a  grave 
problem, — namely,  whether  medical  science  is  really 
doing  a  merciful  work  in  prolonging  diseased  lives,  and 
thus  enabling  them  to  transmit  their  diseases  to  others. 
But  it  is  not  so  grave  a  problem  as  it  looks.  Undoubtedly 
the  transmission  of  disease  is  a  very  great  wrong.  There 
is  required  a  higher  morality  which  will  restrain  the  vic- 
tims of  hereditary  disease  from  defying  the  plain  com- 
mands of  justice  and  right.  When  society  devotes  to  its 
own  affairs  more  of  that  zeal  which  denounces  the  sins 
of  the  stiff-necked  in  bygone  ages,  we  shall  have  laws 


THE  ANGEL  OF  DEA  TH.  209 

that  shall  transfer  the  ban   against  certain  very  proper 
though    unlevitical    intermarriages  to  marriages   which 
involve   pain   and  death   to  the  unborn.     Such  a  law 
might,  indeed,  work  injustice  unless  gradually  developed 
through  further  knowledge ;  but  it  is  an  error  to  think 
that  the  evil  could  be  mastered  by  ceasing  to  prolong 
invalid  lives.     It  can  only  be  met  by  a  wider  diffusion  of 
knowledge  concerning  the  laws  of  health  and  of  disease, 
especially  the  laws  of  morbid    inheritance.     When  such 
laws  are  generally  known    they  will  be  generally  obeyed. 
Sentiment  will  follow    them.      That  old  law  of  nature, 
the  survival  of  the  healthiest,    though  apparently  checked 
by  medical  science,  will    recover    itself  by  means  of  the 
very  knowledge  obtained  in  prolonging  life ;  and  culture 
will  be  followed  by  a  natural  selection  of  the  healthy.   In 
a  perfectly  civilised  society  everybody  would  die  of  old 
age.     And  when  that  time  comes  death  will  be  robbed 
of  its  last  terror.     For  to  a  rational  mind — haunted  by 
no  fears  for  the  future — the  only  grief  surrounding  death 
is  just  that  painful  tearing  of  the  heart  away  from  all  its 
joys  which  the  ancients  ascribed  to  a  demon,  while  the 
gentle  death  of  old  age  seemed  to  them  the  friendly  office 
of  an  angel.     There  is  an  old  story  that  when  Menippus, 
the  cynic,  passed  by  suicide  into  Hades,  he  recognised 
there  all  the  kings  by  their  howling  so  much  louder  than 
the  rest.     They  howled  louder,  because  they  had  been 
parted  from  more  earthly  treasures  than  the  rest.     They 
who  are  surrounded  by  affection,  friendship,  opportunity, 
health,  have  an  estate  beyond  kings,  and  to  such  the 
apprehension  of  death  must  bring  pain.     And  so  far  as 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


such  are  concerned  it  may  be  said,  in  passing,  that  no 
prayer  can  be  more  foolish  than  that  which  deprecates 
"  sudden  death  "  :  such  death  may  seem  shocking  to 
priests,  who  consider  their  shrivings  of  importance  ;  but 
reason  justifies  the  feehng  of  Caesar,  approved  by  Bacon, 
that  "the  suddenest  passage  is  easiest."  Still  more  at 
war  with  human  happiness  is  the  miserable  priestly  plan 
of  inculcating  it  as  a  duty  to  dwell  on  the  thought  of 
death.  What  could  be  more  cruel  than  the  plan  of  the 
Rev.  Leigh  Richmond— editor  of  the  consumptive  theo- 
logy of  sickly  shepherds  and  cottagers — who  so  com- 
placently describes  his  custom  of  collecting  the  village 
children  in  the  graveyard  to  learn  spelling  and  reading 
from  the  tombstones  ! 

Yet  the  average  duration  of  human  life  is  a  steadfast 
consideration  in  every  wise  man's  life,  with  reference  to 
which  he  will  build.  And  it  is  a  problem  of  vast  moment 
to  every  individual  by  what  means  he  shall  conquer  the 
traditional  influences  by  which  death  is  shown  as  his 
enemy,  and  turn  it  into  a  friendly  factor  of  his  work  and 
life  on  earth.  There  is  something  infinitely  pathetic  in 
the  solution  given  to  this  problem  by  Buddha :  let  death 
find  you  already  dead  to  everything  from  which  it  can 
part  you.  A  sort  of  slow  psychological  and  passional 
suicide  has,  indeed,  been  proposed  by  many  re- 
ligions as  the  means  of  removing  the  sting  of  death. 
But  this  is  mere  evasion  of  the  difficulty,  not  its  solu- 
tion. Nor  is  there  any  solution  of  it  possible  except  in 
the  utter  eradication  from  the  human  mind  of  the  ac- 
cursed superstition  that  death  is  a  curse,  and  the  entire 


THE  A.VGEL  OF  DEATH. 


dissociation  of  it  from  future  dangers.     As  those  miser- 
able fictions  disappear  man  will  set  himself  to  destroy 
the  incidental   evils  of  death,  but  will  also  increasingly 
recognise  death  itself  as  a  beautiful  provision  of  Nature. 
The  popularity  of  the  German  engraving  "  Death,  as 
friend/' — representing  the  skeleton    figure,  with  scythe 
laid  aside,  gently  touching  the  aged  man  in  his  sleep, — 
suggests  that  people  generally  may  be  wiser  in  this  matter 
than  their  professional  intimidators.     The  feeling  which 
welcomes  death  for  others  when  the  natural  term  of  life 
is  reached  is  true  and  kind.     There  are  those  whom  we 
may  love  as  much  as  ourselves ;  but  when  we  see  that  no 
further  happiness  and  usefulness  await  them,  we  feel  that 
it  would  be  selfish  to  wish  them  to  totter  on  while  release 
is  near  ;  and  though  on  their  serene  saintly  faces  the  tears 
fall  fast,  they  are  out  of  the  sweet  depths  of  memor)-,  not 
of  despair.     And  if  this  be  so  with  those  who  remain, 
much  more  is  it  so  to  those  who  depart,  for  they  no  longer 
possess  treasures  on    earth ;  their  treasures  have  gone 
before  them.     One  by  one  the  old  friends  have  departed, 
insensibly  the  ties  worn  thin — then  broken — that  bound 
them  to  earth.     Of  the  garden  of  joys  that  once  bloomed 
around  them  memory  alone  remains,  like  the  last  rose  ; 
and  that  memory  would  become  pain   did   not   death 
kindly    scatter    the    petals    where    the    loved   ones  are 
sleeping. 

Know'st  thou  not  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf 
How  the  heart  feels  a  languid  grief, 
Laid  on  it  for  covering  ; 
And  how  sleep  seems  a  goodly  thing, 
In  Autumn  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf? 


IDOLS  AND  IDEALS. 


And  how  the  swift  beat  of  the  brain 
Falters  because  it  is  in  vain, 
In  Autumn  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf. 
Knowest  thou  not?  and  how  the  chief 
Of  joys  seems  not  to  suffer  pain  ? 

Knows't  thott  not  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf 
How  the  soul  feels  like  a  dried  sheaf, 
Round  up  at  last  for  harvesting  ; 
And  how  death  seems  a  comely  thing 
In  Autumn  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf.* 

But  even  when  old  age  is  not  l-eached  in  yeafs  it  is 
but  too  ofteil  reached,  in  all  but  its  serenity,  by  cares  and 
sufferings.  It  is  not  then — it  is  never — that  death 
deserves  the  repute  of  a  demon.  Rather  it  should  be 
judged  by  the  frequency  with  which  its  presence  is  re- 
cognised by  the  cessation  of  pain.  When  anguish  would 
become  intolerable  death  interposes  its  relief.  Not  at 
the  door  of  the  Great  Anassthetic  that  brings  release  at 
last  to  all  pain,  miist  we  lay  the  ignorance  and  dis- 
obedience by  which  are  brought  on  men  the  troubles  that 
need  the  sweet  nepenthe.  Until  mankind  have  attained 
that  higher  civilisation  which  shall  render  an  untimely 
death  as  scandalous  as  a  case  of  starvation  is  now,  we 
can  only  remember  that  compensations  surround  the  great 
majority  even  of  seemingly  premature  deaths.  And  this 
not  alohe  because  they  are  generally  the  result  of  some 
congenital  weakness, — developed  from  within  or  without, 
as  by  epidemics, — which  would  probably  make  j^rolonged 
suffering  the  alternative  of  early  death ;  but  also  because 
in  every  grave  the  sorrows  and  anxieties  are  put  to  sleep 

*  By  D.  G.  Rossetti.  An  unpublished  poem,  which  the  authof 
kindly  permits  me  to  print. 


THE   ANGEL    OF  DEATH. 


along  with  the  joys.  In  that  final  rest  how  many  difficul- 
ties are  settled,  how  many  cares  sink  for  ever  !  Forebod- 
ings, misunderstandings,  haunting  memories  of  mistake, 
cannot  invade  that  charmtfd  rest. 

There  is  a  soft  Lethe  flowing  through  all  our  life, 
beside  whose  still  waters  we  are  led  that  our  hearts  may 
be  restored.  It  is  fringed  with  the  flowers  of  forgetful- 
ness ;  on  its  margin  the  lilies  of  childhood  shine  above 
the  wave  in  which  all  its  mishaps  are  buried,  and  youth's 
meadow  is  rich  where  it  has  wandered,  by  reason  of  the 
poppies  it  has  set  on  the  graves  of  desire  and  disappoint- 
ment. How  great  is  our  debt  to  that  daily  death — 
Oblivion  !  Let  us  not  fear  when  the  sweet  stream  from 
which  we  so  long  drank  surcease  of  sorrow  widens  with 
us  to  a  shoreless  sea. 

The  influence  of  the  good  done  does  not  end  with 
the  power  to  do  more,  and  it  is  something  that  the  dead 
cannot  live  to  undo  the  good  they  have  done.  Lord 
Bacon  said  he  did  not  fear  death,  but  he  would  rather  not 
live  to  go  to  the  funeral  of  his  own  reputation.  Alas, 
that  is  just  what  befell.  But  death  softens  even  that 
tragedy.  They  who  have  lived  to  accomplish  any 
worthy  task  may  solace  themselves,  even  in  the  presence 
of  untimely  death,  by  seeing  that  under  the  shadow  of 
death  love  reawakens.  Their  virtue  rises  more  pure 
from  the  grave :  their  faults  are  sure  to  be  interred  with 
their  bones  if  they  have  done  even  a  little  work  worthy 
to  live  after  them. 

David  Scott  designed  a  picture  of  the  "  Procession  of 
Unknown  Powers."    A  youth,  seated  on  the  curve  of  the 


214  IDOLS   AND    IDEALS. 


sphere,  gazes  upon  the  awful  forms  that  pass  by,  each 
bearing  a  star.  To  his  appeaUng  gaze  they  return  no 
look  :  in  silent  majesty  they  move  on  whither  their  stead- 
fast eyes  are  bent.  As  the  youth  with  anxious  face 
looks  upward,  on  the  earth  beside  him  a  lily  has  bloomed, 
and  on  his  shoulder  a  chrysalid  gained  its  wings.  So  do 
they  move  before  us  all,  these  Unknown  Powers ;  but  even 
of  them  one  thing  may  be  known — they  are  steadfast  to 
their  path  and  their  task.  It  may  be  the  youth  will  learn 
his  lesson  presently,  and  turn  to  attend  with  equal 
steadfastness  to  the  flower  at  his  side  and  the  winged 
creature  on  his  shoulder.  It  is  not  by  perpetual  gazing 
upon  death  with  its  star,  still  less  by  shutting  out  from 
the  heart  the  ephemeral  beauty  that  blooms  beside  us,  that 
we  can  be  free  from  the  fear  of  that  inevitable  power ;  but 
it  is  by  coaxing  from  each  seed  of  opportunity  its  flower, 
and  cherishing  each  faculty  till  it  find  wings.  Love  can 
transmute  all  earthly  treasures  to  eternal  life ;  so  shall 
they  become  an  imperishable  bequest  of  the  dying  to  the 
living ;  for  self  cannot  desire  to  carry  away  the  treasures 
gathered  for  the  sake  of  love. 

And  when  that  unanswering  power,  whose  name  is 
Death,  bears  away  on  its  path  the  lives  that  are  dear,  the 
bereaved  may  equally  derive  that  same  lesson,  and  turn 
to  make  the  most  of  those  who  remain,  tending  more 
carefully  the  flowers  of  kindness,  removing  what  thorns 
they  can  from  the  paths  of  those  from  whom  they  must 
presently  be  parted. 


CHRISTIANITY. 


ERRATA. 

In  the    Essay  on   Christianity  : — 

P.  7,    1.  22,  strike  out  'if  not  later.' 
P.  II,  1.  5,  for  'David'   'Abraham.' 
P.  45,    1.9,   for   'Christianity'   'Christian.' 
P.  53,   I.  26,    'Nicene'  refers  to  the  creed,  not  the  place. 
P.  59,   1.  25,  insert  'Gentile'  before  'Bishop.' 
P.  75,  1,  10,    'original'  before  'Nicene.' 
P.  75,  1.  19,  for  'Nicene'  read  ' Alhanasian.' 
P.    103,  1.  22,     refers    to    Tischendorf's  new   reading   of 
Col.  ii-  2. 


214  IDOLS   AND    IDEALS. 


sphere,  gazes  upon  the  awful  forms  that  pass  by,  each 
bearing  a  star.  To  his  appeahng  gaze  they  return  no 
look  :  in  silent  majesty  they  move  on  whither  their  stead- 
fast eyes  are  bent.  As  the  youth  with  anxious  face 
looks  upward,  on  the  earth  beside  him  a  lily  has  bloomed, 
and  on  his  shoulder  a  chrysalid  gained  its  wings.  So  do 
they  move  before  us  all,  these  Unknown  Powers ;  but  even 
of  them  one  thing  may  be  known — they  are  steadfast  to 
their  path  and  their  task.  It  maybe  the  youth  will  learn 
his  lesson  presently,  and  turn  to  attend  with  equal 
steadfastness  to  the  flower  at  his  side  and  the  winged 
creature  on  his  shoulder.  It  is  not  by  perpetual  gazing 
upon  death  with  its  star,  still  less  by  shutting  out  from 
the  heart  the  ephemeral  beauty  that  blooms  beside  us,  that 


caretuuy  tnc  nowers  oi  Kmaness,  removmg  wiiat  tnorns 
they  can  from  the  paths  of  those  from  whom  they  must 
presently  be  parted. 


CHRISTIANITY. 


ITS    MORNING    STAR. 


ITS    MORNING    STAR. 


I. 

HE  homage  paid  to  Christ  is  a  high  poetic  fact  in 
human  history.  Even  in  the  Legend  of  Christ, 
with  all  its  fables,  there  are  not  wanting  in- 
dications of  the  profound  faith  of  man  in  his  own  higher 
nature.  The  poor  victim  of  his  own  animalism  will  fain 
believe  that  somewhere  his  nature  rose  above  all  that  is 
low  and  vile.  Standing  amid  physical  laws  which  are  as 
hard  walls,  the  ignorant  love  to  think  that  at  his  highest 
man  has  been  able  to  master  the  laws.  These  are  the 
ideals  of  ignorant  ages  which  art,  science,  and  culture  can 
alone  fulfil.  Until  nature  is  recognised  as  divine  there 
must  be  a  supernature  ;  and  no  one  will  speak  lightly  of 
tlie  myths  of  humanity,  even  when  he  may  become  old 
enough  to  regard  them  as  childish  things. 

Priesthoods  have  gained  power  over  the  people  through 
cunning  use  of  their  love  for  their  greatest  man.  But  of 
course  no  priesthood  can  rest  upon  a  man,  or  on  anything 
within  the  reach  of  every  mind's  comprehension ;  so  they 
have  made  Christ  into  such  a  god  as  is  adapted  to  their 


6  CHRISTIANITY. 

purposes.  The  manhood  of  Christ,  though  it  is  the  one 
thing  about  him  in  which  all  creeds  agree,  has  so  far 
receded  before  the  Shape  bearing  his  name  and  contrived 
in  the  interests  of  Christianity,  that  it  is  called  infidelity  to 
speak  of  Christ  as  a  man.  I  have  no  belief  that  any  man 
can  really  be  interested  in  the  genius  or  character  of  Christ 
so  long  as  he  is  still  under  the  impression  that  the  Christian 
scheme  embodies  him.*  That  takes  him  out  of  the  region 
of  human  interest,  whatever  interest  of  another  kind  it  may 
enlist.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  privileges  of  freethinkers 
that  they  can  study  with  that  calmness  which  is  essential 
to  research,  and  which  is  impossible  where  other  aims  than 
to  find  the  fact  intervene,  the  lives  of  those  great  men  who 


*  As  a  rule  I  prefer  the  title  "Christ,"  to  that  of  "Jesus,"  for 
we  cannot  be  certain  that  the  latter,  said  to  have  been  the  name 
assigned  by  the  angel,  was  really  bestowed  by  his  parents  in  childhood . 
The  instinct  of  Catholic  and  Ritualist  recognises  "Jesu  "  as  the  more 
superstitious  name.  Even  if"  Jesus  "were  the  original  name,  it  seems 
tome  less  characteristic  than  the  title  which  signs  the  verdict  of  the 
people  on  the  man  after  his  work  was  done.  "  Christ  "  is  also  a  Gentile 
word,  and  better  symbolises  the  effect  of  a  life  and  teaching  which 
broke  down  the  wall  of  partition  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  and 
advanced  so  far  the  religion  of  humanity.  Finally,  the  oriental 
custom  by  which  nearly  all  gi-eat  religious  teachers  became  known  in 
history  by  other  than  their  family  names,  reflects  in  this  instance  especial 
honour  on  human  nature  to  which  it  is  entitled.  Those  who  most 
distrust  the  people  have  never  forgotten  that  they  cried  "Give  us 
Barabbas  instead  of  him,"  and  we  who  think  of  the  masses  with  hope 
must  not  forget  that  when  and  where  the  people  could  give  their 
suffrage  free  of  priestly  demagoguism,  they  voted  the  same  man  tlieir 
King,  above  all  the  Crcsars.  For  "  Christ "  represents  no  priestly 
but  a  royal  title,  which  Jew  and  Gentile  united  to  bestow  on  a  poor 
man  whose  only  claim  to  kingship  was  that  he  bore  witness  to  the 
truth. 


ITS  MORNING  STAR. 


have  been  the  objects  of  superstitious  veneration.  No 
prejudice,  no  compulsory  creed,  no  fear  of  the  results  Ckf 
inquiry,  can  prevent  our  seeking  and  stating  the  simple 

truth. 

Jesus,  agree  all  the  sects,  was  a  man.  They  add  that 
he  was  more— though  what  they  append  generally  would 
make  him  less — than  a  man.  We  must  pardon  the 
speculation,  since  so  few  know  what  a  man  is.  But  it  is  just 
that  we  are  all  seeking  to  know,  what  a  man  really  is  ;  and 
nothing  can  better  aid  us  than  to  learn  from  the  great 
manifestations  of  our  humanity  in  such  men  as  Jesus. 
Let  us  then  inquire  what  manner  of  man  he  really  was. 

II. 

The  only  materials  we  have  for  our  inquiry  are  those 
supplied  by  the  Four  Gospels,  with  now  and  then  a  hint 
from  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  From  these  we  must  deduct 
all  that  can  be  shown  to  have  been  written  for  a  theoretical 
purpose,  or  in  the  interest  of  any  party,  school,  or  sect. 

Thus,  we  can  get  but  little  that  is  descriptive  of  die 
real  Christ  from  such  a  work  as  that  called  "  The  Gospel 
according  to  John."  In  the  first  place  it  is  a  very  late 
work,  belonging  to  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century, 
if  not  later.  Its  scholastic  style  of  Greek,  its  frequent 
ignorance  of  local  usages  and  places,  and  neglect  of 
notorious  Jewish  traditions  concerning  Christ — whose 
birth,  baptism,  and  temptation  arc  in  it  utterly  ignored — 
indicate  the  passage  of  the  legend  into  a  new  habitat.  In 
the  anxiety  to  present  a  superhuman  being  all  earthly 


CHRISTIAXITY. 


aspects   are   eliminated.     There   are  also  traces  in  this 
Gospel  of  controversies  which  were  unknown  within  four 
generations  after  Christ's  death.      Thus   (John  viii.,  44) 
Christ  is  represented  as  saying  of  the  Devil,  "  he  is  a 
liar  and  so  is  his  father."     Though  the  English  version 
has  tried  to  cover  the  meaning  by  turning  the  sentence 
into  bad  grammar  and  worse  sense  ("  a  liar  and  the  father 
of  it  ")  the  original  is  plain  :  ij/evo-Tq-:  ia-rl,  koL  6  Trar^p  avrov. 
Now  this  notion  that  the  Devil  had  a  father  was  one  of  the 
later  phases  of  the  Gnostic  philosophy.      The  Demiurge, 
employed  to  create  the  world  and  then  setting  up  a  rival 
kingdom,  was  for  the  first  time  associated  with  the  Devil, 
and  suggested  as  his  creator,  by  Marcion,  who  taught  in 
Rome  during   the    middle  of  the  second  century.     In 
other  sentences  ascribed  to  Christ  the  Marcionite  idea  of 
an  "  antithesis  " — the  demiurgic  confronting  the  divine 
kingdom— is   reflected,    but   here   it    reaches   the   later 
Archonitic  development,  the  Devil  being  named  as  the 
Son  of  the  Evil  Creator  (as  Christ  is  of  the  Good  God), 
This  conception,  which   Augustine  denounces  as  Mani- 
chcen,  could  only  have  been  stated  late  in  the  second 
century. 

But  apart  from  the  late  date  of  the  fourth  gospel,  the 
writer  of  it  is  so  absorbed  in  his  main  theoretical  purpose, 
— that  of  making  Christ  the  point  of  union  between  the 
Hebrew  personification  of  Wisdom  and  the  Greek  con- 
ception of  the  Logos, — that  he  does  not  hesitate  to  sacri- 
fice everything,  even  the  moral  character  of  Christ,  to  his 
end.  He  represents  Christ  as  attitudinising  at  the  grave 
of  Lazarus.     "Jesus  wept";  but  could  those  have  been 


ITS  MORNING  STAR. 


genuine  tears  of  sorrow  at  the  death  of  a  man  whom  he 
knows  he  can  resuscitate  by  a  word  ?  Then  he  raises  his 
eyes  and  says  "  Father,  I  thank  thee  that  thou  hast  heard 
me."  And  he  adds,  "I  said  that  because  of  the  people, 
that  they  may  believe  thou  hast  sent  me  ;  I  know  that 
thou  hearest  me  always" — an  "  aside,"  confessing  that 
his  thanks  were  meant  for  effect.  This  is  only  a  fair  ex- 
ample of  how  Christ  is  uniformly  adapted  to  a  theory  in 
the  fourth  gospel. 

It  is  indeed  enough  that  it  entirely  omits  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount !  The  homely  every-day  virtues  of  that 
sermon  were  too  human,  too  commonplace,  to  arrest  the 
attention  of  a  speculative  enthusiast  absorbed  in  the 
tremendous  work  of  remodelling  the  theosophic  schools 
of  Egypt  and  Greece,  harmonising  their  divisions,  and 
solving  the  problems  of  ages.  Nevertheless,  in  another 
direction,  this  gospel,  however  untrustworthy  for  personal 
portraiture  of  Christ,  is  of  the  highest  importance  by  reason 
of  the  spirit  of  love  which  it  consecrates.  It  is  the  very 
apotheosis  of  Love.  God  is  Love.  Christ  is  Love.  To 
love  is  the  only  test,  the  only  creed,  the  perfect  life.  So 
magnificent  is  this  rapture  of  love  that  breathes  through 
the  gospel  which,  no  doubt  because  of  it,  was  inscribed 
with  the  name  of  the  disciple  called  "Beloved,"  that  the 
warring  Jew  and  Gentile  sects  seem  to  have  had  to  touch 
it  here  and  there  in  the  interest  of  what  they  deemed 
orthodoxy.  Thus  in  the  noble  utterance  ascribed  to 
Christ,  speaking  to  the  Samaritan  woman,  that  neither  in 
her  sacred  mountain  nor  yet  at  Jerusalem  should  the  true 
worshippers  gather,  but  everywhere  should  they  worslii[) 


lo  CHRISTIANITY. 

in  spirit  and  in  truth,  a  Jewish  sectarian  has  interpo- 
lated the  words  "  ye  (Samaritans)  know  not  whom  ye 
worship  ;  we  know  whom  we  worship,  for  salvation  is  of 
the  Jews," — and  this  bit  of  bigotry  remains  there  like  an 
insect  in  translucent  amber. 


III. 

For  our  main  facts  we  proceed  to  what  are  called  the 
Synoptical  Gospels.  .Of  these  we  may  set  aside  Mark 
except  for  occasional  correction  of  the  other  two,  because 
it  is  an  evident  compilation  from  them.  Now  these  two 
Gospels,  Matthew  and  Luke,  portray  a  Christ  totally  dis- 
tinct from  the  mystical  Christ  of  John ;  and  yet  their 
disagreement  from  each  other  is  very  significant,  showing 
very  plainly  that  both  are  warped— one  by  a  theological, 
the  other  by  a  polemical  purpose — even  when  recording 
the  same  facts  or  traditions.  To  discover  how  far  the 
portrait  of  Christ  presented  by  either  was  influenced  or 
tinged  by  the  writer's  prejudices,  we  must  for  the  moment 
dismiss  from  our  consideration  the  truth  or  falsity  of  the 
narratives,  and  think  only  of  the  colouring  given  to  them. 

Taking  Luke  first,  we  find  pervading  his  work  a 
jealousy  of  the  Jews.  It  is  well  known  that  the  be- 
lievers in  Christ,  from  the  first  generation  after  his  death, 
were  sharply  divided  into  two  parties, — one  wishing  to 
preserve  the  supremacy  of  Judaism  in  the  new  religion 
the  other  determined  that  the  Gentiles  should  have  an 
equal  or  superior  part  in  it.  Now  Luke  presses  every- 
thing in  favour  of  the  Gentiles,     The  writer  addresses 


ITS  MORNING  STAR. 


his  work  to  a  Gentile,  Theoi)hilus,  and  begins  by  admit- 
ting that  he  was  not  an  eye-witness,  but  had  carefully 
searched  into  the  traditions  transmitted  from  those  who 
were.  At  the  outset  we  find  Luke  tracing  the  genealogy 
of  Christ  beyond  Hebrew  kings,  beyond  David  where 
Matthew  leaves  him,  back  to  Adam, — that  is,  to  the  father 
of  all  races,  Gentiles  equally  with  Jews.  And  Adam,  he 
says,  was  the  son  of  God. 

I  cannot,  at  present,  go  exhaustively  into  this  subject, 
but  will  present  some  of  the  more  salient  instances  in 
which  the  Gentile  animus  of  Luke  is  shown.*  Matthew 
relates  an  incident  in  which  Christ  is  represented  as  at 
first  refusing  the  petition  of  a  woman  because  she  was  an 
alien,  but  afterwards  granting  it  because  she  humbled 
herself  before  the  chosen  race.  "  Behold  a  woman  of 
Canaan  came  out  from  those  borders,  and  cried,  saying, 
Have  mercy  on  me  Lord,  son  of  David  :  my  daughter  is 
grievously  possessed  with  a  demon.  But  he  answered 
her  not  a  word.  And  his  disciples  came  to  him  saying. 
Send  her  away  ;  for  she  cries  after  us.  He  said,  I  was 
not  sent  but  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel.  And 
she  came  and  worshipped  him,  saying,  Lord,  help  me. 
But  he  answered  and  said,  It  is  not  lawful  to  take  the 
children's  bread  and  throw  it  to  the  dogs.  But  she  said. 
Yea,  Lord ;  for  even  the  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs  which 


*  An  admirable  series  of  articles  on  this  general  subject,  which  I 
hope  may  at  some  time  be  reprinted,  were  contributed  by  the  Rev. 
O.  B.  Frothingham  to  the  "  Dial,"  a  magazine  edited  by  myself  in 
Cincinnati,  in  iS6o. 


CHRISTIANITY. 


fall  from  their  masters'  table.  Then  Jesus  answered  and 
said  vmto  her,  O  woman,  great  is  thy  faith ;  be  it  unto 
thee  as  thou  wilt."  This  is  Matthew's  account.  Mark 
represents  Christ  as  following  the  woman's  abject  words, 
speaking  of  her  race  as  dogs,  with  "  for  this  saying  go 
thy  way  :  the  demon  is  gone  out  of  thy  daughter." 
Now  Luke  omits  this  story  altogether ;  but  he  replies  to 
its  insult  to  the  Gentile  race,  when  making  up  the  genea- 
logy of  Christ,  by  giving  him  two  Cainans  among  his 
ancestors.  This  Cainan  number  two  is  found  nowhere  in 
the  Old  or  New  Testaments  except  in  Luke,  where  it 
stands  as  an  intensification,  grown  to  a  serious  claim,  that 
the  despised  race  of  aliens,  whom  the  Jews  conquered 
and  despised,  nevertheless  contributed  a  double  supply 
of  blood  to  the  veins  of  their  Messiah. 

Luke  also  omits  the  charge  to  the  disciples  (Matt. 
X,  5) :  "  Go  not  into  a  way  of  Gentiles,  and  into  a  city 
of  Samaritans  enter  not ;  but  go  rather  to  the  lost  sheep 
of  the  house  of  Israel."  On  the  other  hand  Luke  replies 
to  this  with  a  story  (ix,  52),  unknown  in  Matthew,  of 
how  Christ  himself  sent  his  disciples — and  he  is  careful 
to  add  seventy  to  the  twelve — into  a  Samaritan  village, 
where  the  people  would  not  receive  them  because  they 
were  on  their  way  to  Jerusalem,  and  how,  when  they 
wished  to  call  down  fire  upon  the  villagers,  Christ  rebuked 
them.  Luke  also  has  the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan, 
— where  the  type  of  charity  is  chosen  from  a  despised 
alien  tribe, — wliich  ALatthew  has  not.  On  an  occasion 
when  Christ  finds  unbelief  in  his  own  village,  he  says, 
"  A  prophet  is  not  without  honour,  but  in  his  own  country 


ITS  MORNING  STAR. 


and  in  his  own  house."  With  Matthew  that  is  all.  But 
Luke  makes  this  the  very  opening  of  Christ's  ministry, 
and  the  occasion  of  a  great  manifesto  against  the  Jews 
and  in  favour  of  aliens.  According  to  him  Christ's 
rebuke  does  not  include  "  his  own  house,"  but  is  national : 
"  No  prophet  is  acceptable  in  his  own  country.  But  I  tell 
you  of  a  truth,  many  widows  were  in  Israel  in  the  days 
of  Elijah,  when  the  heaven  was  shut  up  three  years  and 
six  months,  when  a  great  famine  came  upon  all  the  land  ; 
and  unto  none  of  them  was  Elijah  sent  save  unto  Sarepta 
of  Sidonia,  unto  a  widow.  And  many  lepers  were  in  Israel 
in  the  time  of  Elisha  the  prophet ;  and  none  of  them 
was  cleansed,  save  Naaman,  the  Syrian."  This  bold  exalta- 
tion of  foreigners  was  followed,  according  to  Luke,  by  an 
attempt  on  Christ's  life,  which  he  escaped  mysteriously, 
— "  passing  through  the  midst  of  them."  That  was 
a  cutting  satire  on  the  Jewish  party. 

It  is  evident  from  this  last  phrase  which  seems  to 
ascribe  to  Christ  the  power  of  rendering  himself  invisible, 
and  others  of  the  same  character,  that  in  Luke  tliere  is  a 
transitional  conception  of  Jesus, — a  germinating  Arianism. 
Luke  cares  little  if  at  all  for  the  Messianic  idea.  Where 
Matthew  reports  the  people  crying,  "  Hosanna  to  the 
Son  of  David,"  Luke  says  they  cried  "  Blessed  be  the 
King  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  ! "  Luke 
i,  35)  even  interprets  the  venerable  title  "  Son  of  God  "as 
meaning  simply  that  the  Holy  Ghost  was  his  father.  He 
is  plainly  representing  Christ  as  a  sort  of  demigod.  It  is 
remarkable  that  he  alone  gives  the  salutation  of  the  angel 
to   Mary,  and  it  is  nearly  in  the  very  words  of  the  seer 


14  CHRISTIANITY. 

Tiresias  to  the  mother  of  Hercules, — "  Be  of  good  cheer, 
thou  mother  of  a  noble  offspring  :  blessed  art  thou  among 
Argive  women." 

We  therefore  must  read  Luke  with  caution,  because  of 
his  polemical  attitude  towards  the  Jews,  and  because  of  a 
slight  speculative  tendency  in  the  direction  of  Greek 
superstitions. 

IV. 

But  how  about  Matthew  ?  We  find  in  Matthew,  as  I 
think,  the  most  primitive  conception  of  Christ,  and  pro- 
bably the  least  biassed  report  of  what  was  really  said 
and  done  by  him.  But  this  first  gospel  is  also  vitiated 
by  a  prepossession  on  the  part  of  the  writer.  In  his  firm 
belief  that  Jesus  is  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews  he  tries  to 
make  nearly  every  word  and  action  of  his  fulfil  a  pro- 
phecy. And  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  in  some  cases 
he  unconsciously  stretches  Christ's  words  and  recasts  his 
actions  in  his  desire- to  show  him  to  the  Jews  as  fulfilling 
all  the  so-called  predictions  of  the  conditions  under  which 
the  Messiah  was  to  appear  and  the  part  he  was  to  enact. 
Thus  he  transports  the  family  of  Joseph  and  Mary  from 
Bethlehem  to  Nazareth  for  no  better  reason  than  the 
apparent  fulfilment  of  a  declaration  in  the  Old  Testament 
that  somebody,  whom  he  supposes  to  be  the  Messiah, 
would  be  '■'■  called  a  Nazarene."  It  is  a  blunder  which 
shows  the  author  to  have  been  a  judaizing  Egyptian- 
Greek  convert.  For  the  passages  alluded  to  (Judges  xiii, 
5,  I  Sam.  i,  ii)  speak  of"  Nazarite,"  one  set  apart  (from 
riazar,  to  separate)  according  to  Jewish  law,  and   have 


nS  MORNING  STAR. 


15 


no  reference  to  the  village  of  Nazareth.  In  reporting 
(Matt,  xii,  38)  Christ's  vigorous  rebuke  of  those  who 
demanded  "  a  sign,"  in  which  he  says  no  sign  shall  be 
given  but  that  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  the  writer  of  the 
first  Gospel  at  once  seizes  another  opportunity  for  showin"- 
a  correspondence  between  Christ  and  a  Jewish  type,  and 
makes  the  teacher  add  :  "  for  as  Jonah  was  three  days  and 
three  nights  in  the  whale's  belly,  so  will  the  son  of  man 
be  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  heart  of  the  earth." 
Christ  could  not  of  course  have  known  anything  of  the 
legend  of  his  resurrection   which  was  to  arise  after  his 

death ;  and,  if  he  made  any  allusion  to  Jonah  at  all 

and  Mark  reports  the  remark  without  it — it  could  only 
have  been  in  the  simple  way  mentioned  in  the  third  gospel, 
that  as  Jonah  warned  Nineveh  he  warned  his  generation. 
The  gospel  of  Matthew  carries  its  hebraism  to  an  extreme 
in  its  fanciful  account  of  Christ's  entry  into  Jerusalem, 
where  he  is  actually  represented  as  riding  on  two  animals 
at  once— an  ass  and  a  colt— because  the  prophecy  had 
said  "  thy  king  comes  unto  thee,  meek,  and  mounted 
upon  an  ass,  and  upon  a  colt  the  foal  of  an  ass  ;  "  the 
^vriter  not  knowing  enough  of  tlie  Hebrew  idiom  to  per- 
ceive that  only  one  animal  was  meant  by  Zechariah,  — "  an 
ass,  even  the  foal  of  an  ass." 

Taking,  then,  these  two  gospels— Matthew  and  Luke 
—divesting  them  of  their  mythology,  their  improbabilities, 
and  glosses,  we  are  left  as  best  we  can  to  build  up  for 
ourselves  a  probable  picture  of  Christ  and  some  idea  of 
his  life  and  teachincrs. 


1 6  CHRISTIANITY. 


V. 

In  the  posthumous  work  of  the  late  Lord  Amberley, 
"An  Analysis  of  Religious  Belief" — a  work  which,  how- 
ever incomplete,  is  so  full  of  information  that  it  must 
awaken  in  us  all  fresh  regret  at  its  author's  untimely 
death — he  lays  down  a  rule  which  I  think  is  likely  to 
mislead,  even  though  he  qualifies  it.  It  is  "  that  wherever 
we  can  perceive  faults  or  blemishes  in  the  character  of 
Christ,  we  may  presume  them  to  have  actually  existed  ; 
for  his  biographers  were  deeply  interested  in  making  him 
appear  perfect,  and  they  would  have  been  anxious, 
wherever  possible,  to  conceal  his  weaknesses."  He  adds 
that  this  principle  must  be  qualified  by  the  consideration 
that  they  might  have  failed  to  recognise  the  faultiness, 
or  may  have  misunderstood  him.  A  perusal  of  the 
gospels  leads  me  to  the  belief  that  wherever  such  blemishes 
are  recorded  they  are  generally,  if  not  invariably,  expres- 
sions of  the  bigotry,  superstition,  or  partisan  feeling  of 
the  writers,  and  that  the  general  high  tenour  of  Christ's 
mind  and  character  should  lead  us  to  give  him  the 
benefit  of  every  doubt,  and  ascribe  the  fault  rather  to  his 
reporters  than  to  himself. 

Another  thing  should  be  said.  Because  we  reject 
miracles  and  legends,  in  themselves,  it  does  not  follow 
that  we  must  reject  all  the  statements  wrapped  up  in 
them.  We  must  remember  that  valuable  ores  arc  con- 
tained in  dross.  Nay,  the  dross  itself  may  be  characteristic 
of  ores  to  which  it  is  related. 

This  last  maxim  is  of  especial  value  when  we  consider 


ITS  MORNING  STAR.  17 

such  legends  as  those  relating  to  the  birth  and  infoncy 
of  Christ.  When  a  man  has  become  famous  it  is  natural 
that  inquiries  should  be  instituted  about  his  family  and 
his  childhood  ;  and  though,  in  such  a  case  as  that  of 
Christ,  it  is  inevitable  that  a  swarm  of  legends  should 
surround  the  facts,  they  may  nevertheless  hint  the  truth. 
Thus  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  get  up  a  tradition  that 
a  man  was  born  a  poor  peasant,  when  his  family  con- 
nection was  well  known  in  its  own  neighbourhood  to  be 
of  wealth  and  rank.  The  traditions  would  point  to  the 
notorious  fact.  There  is,  therefore,  no  reason  why  we 
should  doubt  the  indications  of  the  legend  in  Luke  that 
Christ  was  born  of  parents  in  good  position.  If  the 
traditions  occurred  only  in  IMatthew  Ave  might  suspect 
he  was  trying  to  make  out  Christ's  relationship  to 
royally;  but  Luke  shows  no  interest  in  Christ's  connec- 
tion with  David.  The  sign  named  to  the  shepherds  by 
which  they  should  recognise  the  babe  was  that  he  would 
be  found  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes, — a  mark,  as 
Calmet  noted,  of  dignity.  We  are  particularly  told  that 
Christ's  birth  in  the  stable  was  only  because  the  inn  was 
full.  There  would  appear  to  be  no  reason  why  Joseph 
should  have  taken  Mary,  so  near  to  her  confinement,  with 
him  to  Bethlehem  to  be  enrolled  or  taxed  under  the  im- 
perial edict,  unless  she  was  possessed  of  some  property 
requiring  her  personal  presence.  It  is  a  fliniily  which 
seems  to  have  leisure  to  travel  even  as  far  as  Egypt  on 
their  own  beasts  of  burthen.  In  Matthew  he  is,  by  our 
translation,  represented  as  the  son  of  a  carpenter  ;  but 
the  word  is  tcktwv,  which  may  be  cither  a  builder  or  a 

B 


1 8  CHRISTIANITY. 


carver  in  wood,  and  in  any  case  does  not  in  the  least 
mean  that  Christ  was  of  low  position. 

The  probabilities  are  that  Paul  stated  a  well-kno^vn 
fact  when  he  said  that  Christ,  though  rich,  for  the  sake  of 
the  people  became  poor.  His  discourses  all  show  him 
to  have  been  a  man  of  education,  and  his  conduct  is 
marked  by  refinement.  When  he  enters  the  synagogue, 
even  when  a  boy,  the  minister  gives  him  the  scriptures 
that  he  may  read  to  the  assembly.  And  it  is  probable 
that  the  startling  effect  produced  upon  the  mind  of  the 
half-clad  popular  prophet  John,  when  Jesus  came  and 
asked  to  be  baptised,  was  the  high  rank  of  his  new 
convert.  "  What,"  he  cries,  "  you  come  to  me  !  to  a 
man  unworthy  (by  position)  to  tie  your  shoes  !"  Of 
course,  we  cannot  be  sure  this  was  John's  meaning,  but 
we  can  be  certain  that  no  coarse  or  illiterate  man  ever 
uttered  the  sermon  on  the  Mount.  Like  many  other 
great  teachers  and  radicals, — like  Buddha,  Zoroaster, 
Confucius,  Mohammed,  Plato,  in  the  past,  and  like  Knox, 
Wesley,  Wilberforce,  Swedenborg,  Saint  Simon,  in  more 
modern  times, — Christ  would  appear  to  have  been  a 
highly-educated  and  well-connected  young  radical  and 
enthusiast,  who  at  first  aimed  to  reform  the  religion  of 
his  country,  and,  that  being  too  strong  for  him,  fought  it 
unto  death. 


VI. 


That  this  youth  was  a  convert  under  the  preaching  of 
the  great  revivalist  of  the  time,  John  the  Baptist,  seems 


ITS  MORNING  STAR.  19 

to  me  plain.  Although  the  \vriters  of  the  Gospels 
manifest  a  suspicious  anxiety  to  turn  John  and  his 
preaching  into  a  mere  preface  to  Christ  and  his  move- 
ment, we  know  from  other  sources  that  the  wild  half-clad 
prophet  in  the  wilderness  had  awakened  a  wide-spread 
excitement,  and  it  still  survives  in  some  Eastern  sects, 
which  care  litde  for  Christ,  and  claim  John  as  their 
founder.  Under  the  Roman  occupation  of  the  country, 
it  is  probable  that  a  diversion  of  popular  feeling  had 
occurred,  and  the  people  in  their  hatred  of  the  foreigner 
had  sunk  into  the  torpor  of  indifference  as  to  their 
intimate  religious  affairs,  under  which  priestly  oppressions 
and  hypocrisies  had  grown  rank.  John  came  laying  his 
axe  at  the  root  of  this  baleful  tree.  He  turned  the  popular 
mind  again  upon  the  need  of  religious  reform  at  home, 
and  directed  against  the  priesthood  the  animosities  which 
had  been  gathering  against  Rome.  He  called  men  to 
alliance  with  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  and  in  the  mouth 
of  an  Essene,  as  he  probably  was,  that  meant  something 
like  the  early  Puritan  movement  was  in  England.  By  its 
Essene  wing  Judaism  was  already  in  connection  with 
Egypt,  and  some  other  foreign  regions  ;  and  the  greater 
universality  of  John's  revival  is  indicated  by  his  adopting- 
for  all  converts  the  symbol  of  purification  by  water  which, 
under  the  old  law,  was  used  only  for  proselytes  from  alien 
tribes.  This  already  implied  the  moral  kingdom  under 
which  Jew  and  Gentile  were  included.  And  this  meant 
a  new  "  cause  "  and  a  great  agitation,  which  were  sure  to 
bring-  their  adherents  into  collision  with  the  priesthood. 
"  Presume  not  any  more,"  cried  John,   "  to  say  within 


20  CHRISTIANITY. 

yourselves,    We    have   Abraham   for   our   father."      He 
denounces  the  Pharisees  as  a  brood  of  vipers. 

Now  when  Jesus  was  baptised  by  John,  he  adopted 
this  new  cause.  He  talked  in  the  same  vein.  "  From 
that  time  Jesus  began  to  preach,  and  to  say,  Repent,  for 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  He  also  called  the 
Pharisees  a  "  brood  of  vipers."  Some  rationalising 
Christians  maintain  that  Jesus  was  simply  a  gentle  and 
good  teacher,  who  went  about  inculcating  a  beautiful 
morality.  But  it  is  plain  that  he  was,  with  John,  Avarrior 
in  a  revolutionary  cause.  It  is  this  fact  which  explains 
his  demand  for  a  personal  following,  which  has  led  some 
to  charge  him  with  egotism.  It  was  not  to  a  personal 
discipleship  that  he  called  men  when  he  said,  "  Come, 
and  follow  me,"  but  the  word  of  a  captain  enlisting 
soldiers  for  a  struggle.  Men  and  women  might  be  gentle 
and  pure  in  their  homes,  but  in  such  an  emergency  that 
would  not  fulfil  the  need  of  the  hour ;  they  must  come 
out  and  stand  by  the  hated  outcast  battling  for  truth  and 
right,  and  thereby  prove  their  fidelity  to  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  Lord  Bacon  has  remarked  that  when  Christ  told 
the  young-  man  that  if  he  would  be  perfect  he  should  give 
away  his  possessions  and  come  follow  him,  he  did  not  say 
he  should  give  them  away  unless  he  was  so  prepared  to 
devote  himself  absolutely  to  the  new  cause.  He  did  not 
lord  it  over  the  young  man's  conscience,  but  acknowledged 
that  a  good  life  might  be  lived  by  obedience  to  the  moral 
laws  ;  though  the  perfect  life  could  be  attained  only  by 
entire  self-consecration  to  the  great  cause  of  truth,  and 
sharing  its  perils  and  hardships.      Incidentally  there  is 


JTS  MORNING  STAR. 


reflected  in  the  absoluteness  of  the  demand  the  singular 
extent  of  Christ's  idealism,  which  disregarded  the  usual 
appliances  of  success — wealth  and  rank — and  trusted 
only  in  the  pure  power  of  Truth,  and  the  enthusiasm  of 
its  adherents. 

That,  like  Wesley  and  most  other  reformers,  Christ  at 
first  tried  to  work  through  the  existing  religious  institu- 
tions is  probable  :  the  traditions  of  his  early  preaching 
in  synagogues  are  clear.  They  may  have  been  ultimately 
closed  against  him,  or  the  crowds  may  have  swelled  so 
that  he  could  only  address  them  out  of  doors.  We  know 
very  little  of  the  mental  phases  and  struggles  through 
which  he  passed  in  the  thirty  years  preceding  his  public 
consecration  by  baptism  to  the  new  kingdom  preached 
by  John.  But  after  that  he  speaks  as  one  who  feei.i 
himself  member  of  a  new  society,  and  by  no  means 
realises  the  full  extent  and  bearing  of  the  revolution  he 
has  espoused.  He  has  rebelled  against  his  class,  and 
taken  his  place  with  the  humblest  religious  community 
which  boasted  of  the  poverty  of  their  prophet,  whose 
food  was  wild  honey  and  his  dress  a  leathern  girdle. 

Christ  is  in"ii)aticnt  of  anything  inharmonious  with  the 
equality  and  democracy  of  the  fraternity  he  has  entered. 
It  is  curious  to  peruse  the  laborious  pedigrees  by  which 
the  gospels  try  to  connect  him  with  royalty,  and  the 
homage  aftenvards  paid  by  the  church  to  his  mother 
beside  the  records  of  his  own  repudiation  of  such  things. 
They  tell  him  his  mother  and  brothers  stand  outside  and 
wish  to  speak  to  him ;  but  he  points  to  his  followers,  and 
will   acknowledge    only  them  as  moiher  and   brothers, 


CHRISTIANITY. 


"Blessed  is  the  v/omb  that  bare  thee  !"  cries  a  woman; 
but,  with  the  like  impatience,  he  exclaims — "No!  blessed 
are  they  who  hear  the  word  of  God  and  keep  it."  There 
is  a  strong  infusion  of  the  Essene  communism  in  this, 
and  there  are  not  wanting  various  early  (as  I  think) 
utterances  disparaging  marriage,  in  which  the  celibacy 
favoured  by  that  society  is  reflected. 

But  this  could  have  only  been  transitional  with  him. 
"  At  last  he  beat  his  music  out " — and  great  music  it  was. 
He  was  no  ascetic  against  whom  it  was  urged,  "This  man 
receiveth  sinners  and  eatetli  with  them."  He  w^as  no 
Essene  who  wove  bridal-feasts  into  parables ;  nor  was  he 
wanting  in  sensibility  or  filial  feeling  who  took  children 
in  his  arms,  was  loved  and  followed  by  women,  and  in 
his  last  agony  asked  John  to  be  as  a  son  to  his  mother. 

vn. 

The  real  beauty  of  Christ's  life  is  just  that  which  is 
hid  by  the  blind  ascription  of  equal  sanctity  to  all  he  did 
and  said, — his  growth.  Slight  as  the  authentic  points 
are,  they  are  points  of  fire.  We  see  him  steadily  emerging 
from  sectarian  trammels  and  national  prejudices:  the 
smoke  of  Jewish  tradition — Gehenna,  devils,  angels, — 
mingling  with  but  never  mastering  the  ever-mounting 
flame  of  his  thought.  It  is  a  Jewish  Messiah  he  sees 
coming  in  clouds  of  glory,  but  the  messianic  costume  is 
thrown  off  when,  descended,  the  judge  says  nought  of 
Jew  or  Gentile,  but  parts  to  right  and  left  men,  as  they 
have  or  have  not  fed  the  hungry  and  clothed  the  naked. 


ITS  MORNING  STAR. 


The  hereditary  conventional  beHefs  in  his  mind  decrease 
until  they  linger  only  as  superficial  garb  of  his  truth  :  he 
never  makes  any  prevailing  error  his  main  point.  It 
appears  to  me  that  some  liberals  concede  too  much  to 
that  Medusa,  Superstition,  which  turns  every  thought 
and  emotion  of  Christ  to  dogmatic  stone,  when  they 
admit  his  responsibility  for  the  demonology,  the  devil, 
the  eternal  hell,  incidentally  mentioned  without  denial  in 
his  teachings.  Under  compulsion  to  fulfil  the  r6le  of  the 
Messiah,  the  Christ  of  Christendom  is  made  to  give  an 
original  and  divine  sanction  to  the  cosmological  notions 
of  his  age,  which  he  held  as  we  hold  the  law  of  gravitation. 
The  demonology,  the  great  gulf  fixed  between  heaven 
and  hell,  were  the  best  science  of  his  age  ;  the  Danvins 
and  Huxleys  of  his  time,  such  as  they  were,  believed 
them :  he  was  not  a  dialectical  or  scientific  sceptic 
engaged  in  questioning  such  things.  In  estimating  a 
great  man  we  should  surely  look  to  that  wherein  he 
was  unique,  individual,  exceeded  his  age  and  added  to 
it.  In  raising  to  equal  import  Christ's  mere  hereditary 
mode  of  expression  and  the  life  that  was  in  him — adoring 
alike  body  and  raiment — the  sects  are  really  building  as 
much  upon  the  creed  of  Christ's  crucifiers  as  on  his  own  I 
Every  Scribe  and  Pharisee  agreed  with  Christ  about 
Gehenna  and  Satan.  It  was  not  for  such  views  they 
put  him  to  death.  It  is  to  complete  their  murderous 
work  only  too  faithfully  that  the  dead  Christ  should  be 
dragged  through  the  world  at  the  chariot-wheels  of  that 
very  Messiah-theory  which  slew  him.  "What  Scribe  and 
Pharisee  did  not  believe  was  in  a  Father  who  sends  his 


24  CHRISTIANITY. 


sunshine  and  rain  on  good  and  evil  alike,  a  Father,  we 
may  deduce  at  length,  not  likely  at  any  time  to  rain  fires 
of  hell  upon  his  children  !  What  shall  be  said  of  those 
who  attribute,  to  the  man  who  believed  in  such  a  Father, 
an  equally  conscious  and  thought-out  agreement  with  the 
logical  results  of  the  conventional  cosmogony  which  was 
sometimes  the  inevitable  costume  of  his  thought  ? 

Especially  is  it  interesting  to  note  how  from  basing  his 
opposition  to  falsities  on  the  written  Law,  he  more  and 
more  appeals  to  nature  and  reason.  David's  eating  the 
shew-bread  and  man"s  superiority  to  the  Sabbath  are 
oddly  connected  for  a  time ;  but  at  length  his  protest 
against  the  Sabbath  is  based  simply  upon  unresting  nature 
and  human  liberty. 

For  his  age  and  countiy  Christ  was,  perhaps,  unique  in 
his  method  of  measuring  usage  and  tradition  by  real 
principles.  When  he  warned  the  youth  to  keep  the  com- 
mandments, and  the  young  man  asks  whicli,  he  does  not 
blindly  reply  "  The  whole  ten,  of  course  ;"  he  names  only 
five  from  the  decalogue, — all  the  real  and  human  ones  ; 
names  none  of  those  that  protect  Jehovah.  For  the 
Sabbatarian  command  he  substitutes  "  Love  thy  neigh- 
bour as  thyself;"  instead  of  warning  the  youth  against 
■•  graven  images,"  which  he  is  in  no  danger  of  worshipping, 
he  touches  his  real  idol — his  wealth  ;  and  instead  of 
exhorting  him  to  do  the  work  of  Moses'  time,  he  calls  him 
to  the  great  task  of  his  own — to  come  out  there  into  the 
street,  stand  by  his  side,  and  toil  for  the  right.  How  far 
he  carried  this  rationalism  we  cannot  fully  know,  for  his 
words  come  to  us  mingled  with  much  that  is  irrational  in 


ITS  MORNIXG  STAR. 


his  reporters:  nevertheless,  to  the  careful  eye,  his  pearl 
will  not  be  confused  with  the  shell  enclosing  it.    We  know- 
that  it  was  a  great  soul,  far  above  any  New  Testament 
writer,  which  sends  us  those  fine  protests  against  prayer 
in  public  places,  that  relegation  of  the  heart  to  the  closet 
for  its  mystical  communion  with  the  Highest.    Not  one  of 
those  believers  in  popular  marvels  who  report  him  could 
have   invented   those   exalted   poetic   interpretations  of 
nature  which  bid  us  learn  of  the  si)arrow  and  of  the  lily, 
more    glorious    than    Solomon    in    his    splendour,    and 
appealed  to  men  to  discern  the  signs  of  their  own  time  as 
for  the  weather  they  watched  the  morning  red  and  glow 
of  evening.    It  was  no  believer  in  a  fictitious  providence 
who  rebuked  the  notion  that  those  on  whom  the  tower  of 
Siloam  fell  were  worse  than  others.     And  among  the  few 
things  which,  even  in  the  fourth  gospel,  we  can  trace  back 
only  to  him,  is  that  wonderful  saying  that  he  will  not  pray 
for  his  disciples,  because  God  needs  no  prompting  of  his 
love  ;  and  also  that  lesson  of  humility  taught  by  his  wash- 
ing the  feet  of  the  humble  working  men  who  followed 
him.     These  things  rei)resent   the    integrity  of  a  great 
mind, — the  mind  of  a  thinker,  a  reasoner,  a  poet.    Critics 
sometimes  charge  rationalists  who  believe  in  the  greatness 
of  Christ  with  selecting  from  the  gospels  all  that  is  favour- 
able, and  discrediting  all    that  is  unfavourable  to  him. 
But  for  one  I  repudiate  that  charge.     I  see  plainly  that 
there  are  some  words  and  actions  ascribed  to  Christ  which 
are  inferior  to  others,  while  they  are  in  some  cases  equally 
authentic.    But,  believing  that  Christ  was  a  man,  I  believe 
that  he  grew,  and  it  is  our  duty  to  estimate  him  at  his 


26  CHRISTIANITY. 


highest,  and  not  at  his  lowest.  I  would  not,  in  my  humble 
concerns,  like  to  have  what  I  said  as  an  orthodox  preacher 
quoted  against  what  I  believe  now.  We  are  entitled  in 
accordance  with  the  laws  of  human  evolution  to  claim 
that  the  Judaic  or  superstitious  utterances  of  Christ  repre- 
sent a  more  youthful  period  of  his  life  than  those  which 
are  in  plain  contradiction  of  them.  Thus  he  says,  "  The 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  sat  in  Moses'  seat ;  all  things,  there- 
fore, whatsoever  they  bid  you,  do  and  keep ;  but  do  not 
ye  after  their  works  :  for  they  say  and  do  not."  Now  I 
say  that  is  the  attitude  of  a  youth  in  transition,— and 
why  ?  Because  at  another  time  he  does  what  those  occu- 
pants of  Moses'  seat  tell  him  not  to  dp,  and  repudiates 
them  on  principle.  They  tell  him  to  keep  the  Sabbath  : 
but  he — casting,  no  doubt,  a  look  on  ever-active  Nature 
around  him— replies,  "  My  Father  ceases  not  his  work 
on  the  Sabbath,  nor  do  I." 

Christ's  attention  was  naturally  first  arrested  by  the 
corruptions  with  which  the  priesthood  had  invested  the 
ancient  religion.  He  felt  the  grandeur  that  lay  in  that 
old  religion,  and  supposed  that  all  it  required  was  purifica- 
tion from  later  corruptions.  It  is  possible  that  in  the 
ardour  of  this  early  aim  he  might  have  made  the  violent 
attack  on  the  tradesmen  in  the  temple  ascribed  to  him. 
He  denounces  the  priests  for  their  hypocritical  evasions 
of  the  Mosaic  Law.  He  finds  them  appending  to  the 
command  "  Honour  thy  father  and  mother  "  a  technical 
escape  from  its  penalty,  which  was  "  He  that  curses  father 
or  mother,  let  him  die  the  death."  His  attention  not  yet 
turned  to  the  law  itself  he  attacks  only  their  evasion  : — 


ITS  MORNING  STAR. 


"  But  ye  say,  Whosoever  shall  say  to  the  father  or  the 
mother,  Be  that  an  offering  whatsoever  thou  mightost  have 
been  profited  by  me,  he  need  not  honour  his  father  or 
mother."  That  is,  a  man  might  purchase  an  indulgence 
for  not  supporting  his  parents  by  paying  a  sum  of  money 
into  the  temple.  But  it  is  certain  Christ  did  not  continue 
to  believe  that  the  established  church  of  his  country  could 
be  so  purified  or  expanded  as  to  answer  the  needs  of  man- 
kind or  represent  his  ideal.  The  time  came  when  the 
conviction  was  forced  upon  him  that  of  all  that  edifice 
not  one  stone  should  be  left  upon  another.  Not  without 
pangs  was  the  transition  completed.  Those  who  have 
known  what  it  is  to  wrestle  with  doubts  and  misgivings, 
who  have  known  what  it  is  to  break  the  ties  of  love  and 
friendship  in  order  to  follow  truth  and  right,  can  best  hear 
all  the  pathos  of  that  lamentation  that  comes  across  the 
ages,  "■  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  that  killest  the  prophets 
and  stonest  them  that  are  sent  unto  thee,  how  often  would 
I  have  gathered  thy  children  as  a  hen  gathers  her  chickens 
under  her  wings,  and  ye  would  not.  Behold  your  house 
is  left  unto  you  desolate.  For  I  say  unto  you,  ye  shall 
not  see  me  henceforth,  till  ye  shall  say.  Blessed  is  he 
that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord."  The  next 
sentence  is  significant  :  "And  Jesus  went  out,  and  de- 
parted from  the  temple."  That  was  just  such  a  heart- 
broken man  abandoning  finally  and  for  ever  the  orthodox 
religion  of  his  time,  as  you,  my  friend,  may  have  known 
in  your  pilgrimage. 

VIII. 
The  question  has  long  been  discussed  whether  Christ 


CHRISTIANITY. 


believed  himself  to  be  the  Messiah  of  Jewish  prophecy 
and  hope.  It  is  a  very  difficult  question  to  determine 
because  of  the  conflicting  theories  of  the  New  Testament 
■writers  which  so  variously  colour  what  he  said.  However, 
my  belief  is  that  in  this  also  his  mind  passed  through 
several  phases  of  belief.  At  the  time  when  Christ  appeared 
the  ancient  Jewish  belief  in  the  Coming  Man  had  not 
only  been  intensified  by  their  subjugation,  but  modified  : 
they  no  more  looked  for  the  righteous  Prince  of  Peace 
leading  in  the  Golden  Age,  but  for  a  warrior  overthrowing 
the  power  of  Rome.  All  the  more,  as  the  possibility 
of  successful  resistance  by  natural  or  military  means 
vanished,  had  they  come  to  rest  on  the  hope  of  divine 
interposition  in  their  behalf.  Exasperated  and  universal 
as  that  feeling  was  we  could  not  expect  any  ardent 
Jewish  youth  to  grow  up  without  sharing  it.  Such  was 
the  popular  state  of  mind  that  no  prophet  or  reformer 
could  arise  without  shaping  his  reform  with  reference  to 
the  messianic  idea.  Theudas,  Judas,  Barkochab,  and 
other  agitators  had  appeared,  pretended  to  be  the 
Messiah,  and  fallen  ignominiously  when  they  could  not 
sustain  the  pretension.  John  the  Baptist  escaped  the 
ordeal  by  confessing  that  he  was  only  the  forerunner  of 
the  Messiah.  As  for  a  long  time  every  religious  radical 
in  Christendom — Fox,  Wesley,  Swedenborg,  Channing — 
have  all  shown  eagerness  to  declare  their  faith  the  most 
genuine  Christianity,  so  it  was  felt  as  a  necessity  that 
every  Jewish  innovator  should  prove  that  he  was  setting 
up  the  only  true  and  genuine  Messiaship.  This  expected 
kingdom   might   be   conceived   variously,  but   it  always 


ITS  MORNING  STAR. 


involved  the  supremacy  of  the  Jews  over  all  other  nations, 
The  enlightened  Jews  have  long  given  uj)  that  notion 
but  it  sur\-ives  among  Christian  bibliolaters,  and  among 
some  Jewish  tribes  singular  recurrences  of  the  belief  are 
not  infrequent,  which  show  the  nature  of  the  supersti- 
tion. Thus  in  that  valuable  London  paper,  ''The Jewish 
World"  (September  15,  1876),  it  is  related  that  Ahmed 
Eyub  Pasha,  commanding  an  expedition  against  the 
revolted  Beni  Haschid  tribes,  was  confronted  by  a  Jewish 
teacher  named  Suleiman  Ishaki,  who  claimed  to  be  the 
Messiah,  and  aimed  to  establish  a  kingdom  of  Jews  in 
South  Arabia  with  himself  as  Prince.  The  Turkish  gover- 
nor has  thrown  this  Messiah  and  his  followers  into  prison 
at  Mariba,  where  Ishaki  now  remains. 

This  idea  of  claiming  Messiaship  seems  to  have  been 
thrust  upon  Christ  by  his  friends.  After  his  baptism  he 
went  about  repeating  the  words  of  John,  "the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  at  hand,"  without  any  intimation  that  he 
had  a  special  part  to  play  in  that  kingdom.  But  John 
the  Baptist  sees  him  and  cries,  "Behold  the  man;" 
disciple  after  disciple  cries,  -'Thou  art  the  Christ ;"  voices 
in  the  crowd  take  it  up  and  proclaim  him  "Son  of  God,"' 
"  Son  of  David  ; "  until  he  himself  seems  to  have  been 
mystified,  and  one  day  asked  his  personal  friends  who 
they  and  others  thought  he  really  was.  And  when  the 
affirmation  came  that  he  was  the  Messiah,  Son  of  the 
living  God,  he  begged  they  would  not  mention  that  to 
anybody.  In  the  synoptical  gospels  Christ  never  calls 
himself  "  Son  of  God,"  and  it  is  probable  that  in  the  old 
phrase   "Son  of  Man"  he  found  the  more  rational  and 


30  CHRISTIANITY. 


liberal  side  of  the  messianic  idea  which  he  temporarily 
■    adopted.     In  one  case  he  uses  it  nearly  as  we  should 
now  use  the  word  Humanity  :  "  The  Sabbath  is  made  for 
man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath.     The  Son  of  Man  is  Lord 
of  the  Sabbath."     That  is,  Man  is  master  of  the  Sabbath. 
The  repeated  desire  expressed  by  Christ  that  his  per- 
sonal   followers    should   not   proclaim   him   to   be   the 
Messiah,  but   even  keep  secret  their  faith,  is   curious. 
Plainly  he  had  no  personal  ambition  in  the  matter.     If 
he  really  believed  himself  the  Messiah  for  whose  advent 
his  nation  looked  his  injunction  would  be  something  as  if 
a  politician,  trying  to  be  elected  President  or  Premier, 
should  conceal  the  fact  that  he  was  a  candidate.     It  is 
not  impossible  that  in  the  early  days  of  his  agitation  he 
canvassed  among  his  friends  in  private  the  possibilities  of 
a  political  movement,  and,  as  a  poetic  radical  sometimes 
does  now,  dreamed  of  a  reformed  world  in  which  the  poor 
working  men  around  him  should  rise  to  power  with  their 
oppressors  at  their  feet.     But  it  is  more  certain  that  the 
messianic  idea  was  gradually  translated  into  the  larger 
spirit  of  his  mind,  and  merged  in  his  final  conception  of 
a  regenerate  Humanity.     Utterly  inconsistent  with  any 
existing  theory  of  the  Messiah  was  his  announcement  of 
a  kingdom  that  was  to  come  without  its  being  observed, 
a  kingdom  within,  or,   if  we  accept  another  sense,  "  in 
the  midst  of"  his  disciples.     No  Jew  would  have  recog- 
nised as  messiaiiic  a  kingdom  not  of  this  world — even  in 
Christ's  sense  of  its  being  moral  and  spiritual.     Nothing 
could  then  have  been  more  anti-messianic  to  a  Jew  than 
that    in  response  to  his  cry  for  a  national  leader  one 


ITS  MORNING  STAR. 


31 


should  start  forward  with  a  proclamation  of  an  invisible 
kingdom,  made  up  of  meek  and  lowly  non-resistants  ! 
The  Bishop  of  Manchester  declares  that  Jesus  was  the 
great  secularist  of  his  time,  and  that  by  his  phrase 
"  Kingdom  of  Heaven  "  (or  "  of  God  ")  he  by  no  means 
meant  any  region  beyond  the  grave,  but  a  new  moral 
order  in  the  earth,  and  in  the  present.  For  once  I  can 
agree  with  a  Bishop.  He  pointed  his  comrades  to  the 
harvest  white  before  them,  warned  them  against  thinkino- 
too  much  of  the  morrow,  and  was  impatient  of  all  talk 
of  a  Messiah  to  come,  and  a  kingdom  shaped  after  the 
patriarchal  fashion.  John  the  Baptist  was  Elias  enough, 
and  the  Messiah  was  already  with  them,  if  they  were  so 
far  liberated  from  tradition  as  to  see  him  in  a  poor  out- 
cast minister  of  truth,  and  were  not  like  the  rest  looking 
for  a  mighty  Captain  and  Prince,  in  purple  and  gold, 
with  mailed  hand  uplifted  against  Ccesar. 

We  must  especially  guard  ourselves  from  adopting  too 
readily  the  terms  of  a  report  made  in  the  interest  of  a 
theory,  and  so  likely  to  turn  any  spontaneous  utterance 
of  a  fers'ent  and  private  moment  into  an  official  docu- 
ment. Thus  when  Peter  says  (Matt,  xvi,  16)  '-'Thou  art 
the  Christ,"  it  is  probable  Christ  thought  of  his  lowliness 
rather  than  of  his  grandeur  as  he  exclaimed  "  Blessed  art 
thou,  Simon,  for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  this 
to  thee,  but  my  Father  in  heaven."  The  priestly  perver- 
sion which  represents  Christ  as  then  and  there  founding  a 
Church,  with  Peter  for  its  pope,  may  well  admonish  us 
how  cold  the  warm  words  of  that  great  heart  had  become 
in  the  days  of  ecclesiastical  strife  amid  which  the  tradi- 


CHKISTIANITY. 


tions  concerning  Christ  were  "revised  in  the  interest  of 
the  orthodox  faith,"  as  the  prelates  naively  confess.  It  is 
more  probable  that  Jesus  v.-as  simply  touched  by  the  fact 
of  a  i)Oor  working-man  turning  from  all  the  proud 
ambitious  notions  of  his  race  to  recognise  the  Son  of 
God  in  a  man  who  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head,  simply 
for  the  truth  that  was  in  him.  Nor  were  there  wanting 
some  who,  long  after,  confronted  the  pomp  and  power  of 
ihe  world  with  the  superior  greatness  of  a  rejected  and 
crucified  teacher  who  bore  the  secret  of  God  in  his  breast. 
Thev  cried  "  Who  is  he  that  overcomcth  the  world  but 
he  that  believeth  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  ! "  That 
man  had  seen  through  all  the  tinsel  that  decorated  the 
seeming  favourites  of  heaven,  he  had  overcome  the  world, 
who  could  fix,  not  on  C^sar  in  his  purple  but  on  Jesus 
in  his  poverty,  as  the  real  king  of  men  and  beloved  of 
God.  The  centuries,  rolling  on,  have  reversed  all  this. 
We  may  now  ask,  "  Who  is  he  that  yields  to  the  world 
but  he  that  believeth  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God?" 
That  man  swims  with  the  current.  Were  Jesus  in 
Christendom,  and  heard  one  name  him  the  Messiah,  he 
could  no  longer  say  the  compliment  came  not  of  flesh  and 
blood  ;  but  to  any  one  amid  the  crowd  who  should  say 
"Thou  art  a  man, — a  right  and  true  man,  than  whom  none 
do  I  love  more,"  his  hand  Christ  must  surely  clasp,  and 
say,  "  Blessed  art  thou,  my  brother !  Flesh  and  blood 
did  not  tell  you  that,  neither  conver.tional  opinion,  nor 
jjriest,  nor  your  own  interest;  but  the  spirit  of  truth,  and 
patient  thought.     Blessed  art  thou  !  " 


ITS  MORNING  STAR.  33 

IX. 

Christ's  pacific  teachings,  the  unobservable  interior 
ingdom  he  announced,  his  rebuke  of  those  who  look 
liere  and  there,  prove  that  he  had  advanced  not  only 
l)eyond  the  creed  and  ritual  of  the  synagogue,  but  beyond 
the  conceit  and  political  narrowness  of  his  nation.  Dr. 
Furness,  who  has  studied  the  life  of  Jesus  as  thoroughly 
and  sympathetically  as  any  living  man.  has  suggested  that 
the  spirit  of  submission  was  taught  by  Christ  with  some 
reference  to  the  condition  of  his  country.  "  Accounting 
themselves  the  chosen  of  Heaven,  and  all  other  nations 
but  as  dogs  in  comparison,  they  were  stung  to  the  ijuick 
bv  tlic  humiliating  consciousness  of  national  subjection.. 
They  thirsted  for  vengeance  upon  their  Gentile  masters, 
and.  indulged  in  the  wildest  dreams  of  temporal  pros- 
perity. It  was  the  proud  fierce  temper  of  the  nation, 
causing  it  to  chafe  against  the  Roman  authority,  that 
was  sure  to  bring  on  a  collision  with  that  mighty  power 
by  which  it  would  be  ground  to  powder.  This  Jesus 
plainly  foresaw.  To  his  prophetic  vision  the  magnificent 
Temple  in  Jerusalem  was  to  become  a  ruin,  not  one  stone 
left  upon  another.  The  only  salvation  of  the  people, 
collectively  and  personally,  was  in  a  temper  directly  the 
reverse,  in  a  spirit  of  patience  which  no  suffering  nor  in- 
juries could  exhaust,  and  in  a  humanity  that  acknowledgeil 
an  example  to  be  followed  in  the  despised  Samaritan."* 

*  Jesus.  By  W.  IT.  Furness.  Philadelphia  :  Lippincott.  1871. 
To  this  and  other  works  of  my  dear  friend  and  honoured  teacher,  as 
v,-ell  as  to  his  conversation,  my  debt  lias  grown  with  time  and  is 
larger  than  I  can  compute. 

C 


34  CHRISTIANITY. 


And  it  is  just  here  that  the  testimony  of  Paul  becomes 
vahiable.  Paul  knows  nothing  of  Christ  as  a  thaumaturgist ; 
he  transmits  to  us  the  moral  portrait  of  a  man  charac- 
terized by  "gentleness"  and  ''simplicity,"  and  one  who 
believed  that  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive. 
But  it  is  a  still  more  important  thing  that  Paul,  who, 
above  all  other  witnesses,  bore  impress  of  Christ  fresh 
upon  him,  should  have  instantly  consecrated  himself  to 
the  work  of  uniting  Jew  and  Gentile.  The  very  keynote 
of  Christ's  Gospel  was  to  Paul  that  which  he  declared  to 
the  nations  : — Christ  has  broken  down  the  dividing  wall 
between  Jew  and  Gentile,  slain  their  enmity,  made  their 
peace,  and  spiritually  united  the  sundered  races  into  "  a 
new  man,"  having  access  by  one  spirit  to  the  one  Father. 
This  is  the  Gospel  which  Paul  declares  he  received  from 
Christ,  and  I  cannot  doubt  that  it  represents  the  last 
teachings  of  Jesus  in  Jerusalem. 

But  that,  again,  was  by  no  means  the  voice  of  a 
Jewish  Messiah.  Such  indifferentism  as  between  Jew 
and  Gentile  might  naturally  have  evoked  from  Roman 
Pilate  the  words  "  I  find  no  fault  in  the  man,"  but  to  the 
priesthood  it  meant  utter  ruin.  It  was  the  reversal  of 
the  whole  Jewisli  history.  It  was  ns  if,  in  Elijah's  time, 
a  Jew  had  started  up  to  affirm  that  Baal  was  equal  to 
Jehovah,  and  both  destined  to  be  superseded  by  a  higher 
deity.  It  meant  that  presently  a  Paul  should  be  preach- 
ing on  Mars  Hill  with  texts  taken  from  Greek  altars  and 
poets.  The  Jewisli  priesthood  was  nothing  if  not  supreme 
over  all  others,  and  their  fundamental  claim  was  that  the 
gods  of  the  nations  were  idols. 


ITS  MORNING  STAR.  35 

Thus,  then,  the  chief  burden  of  Paul's  ministry  was 
the  downfall  of  that  tree  at  whose  root  John  the  Baptist 
had  laid  the  axe  ;  and  between  John  and  Paul  stands 
Christ,  whose  life,  genius,  and  martyrdom  had  made  that 
consummation  possible,  and  who  from  the  messianic  stem 
of  Israel  had  flowered  into  a  prophet  of  Humanity. 

X. 

To  two  great  ideas,  both  fatal  to  a  priesthood,  Christ 
fell  a  martyr.  He  was  not  put  to  death  because  of  his 
beautiful  moral  teachings  or  his  pure  life.  There  was 
nothing  novel  in  his  moral  teachings  :  his  precepts  can  all 
befound  in  Talmudicand  other  scriptures  existing  before 
his  time,  albeit  stated  by  him  far  more  felicitously  and 
simplified  for  the  popular  comprehension,  and  his  high 
morality  was  no  more  original  than  the  sunshine.  His 
fatal  peculiarities  were,  first,  that  he  taught  a  natural 
religion,  a  religion  written  in  ilowers  on  the  earth,  one 
with  the  stars  in  their  courses.  He  taught  men  to 
judge  of  themselves  what  was  right.  Such  ideas  rendered 
a  priesthood  totally  unnecessary.  Every  priesthood  rests 
upon  the  assumption  that  they  are  the  essential  solicitors 
and  barristers  of  truth  and  holiness,  and  no  man  can 
approach  Heaven  without  them.  This  teacher  of  a  Father 
whom  men  could  approach  and  love,  and  be  loved  by, 
simply  through  virtue  and  faith,  without  any  priestly 
mediator,  or  any  rite  or  ceremonial,  was  assailing  the 
very  foundation  of  every  temple.  Do  not  go  to  churches 
to  pray,   but  to  your  closet !     Put  no  trust  in  tithes  ! 


CHRISTIANITY. 


Consider  the  lilies  ;  observe  that  sower  with  his  seed,  or 
the  little  mustard  seed  from  which  that  great  tree  sprang; 
think  of  God  as  a  father  waiting"  and  watching  for  the 
return  of  his  poor  foolish  son  from  a  land  of  famine  ! 
It  was  not  indeed  for  the  first  time  simple  natural 
thoughts  had  come  to  freshen  the  heart  of  the  world, 
but  wherever  they  have  come  the  successful  teacher  of 
them  has  made  necessary  the  death,  gradual  or  violent,  of 
the  priesthood  or  of  himself. 

But  if  this  had  been  his  only  offence  Jesus  might 
perhaps  have  escaped  death,  for  his  eloquence  and 
sincerity  had  won  him  a  popularity  which  no  priest  pos- 
sessed. But  he  turned  the  people  against  him  when  he 
added  to  it  that  other  fatal  idea, — namely,  that  all  their 
hopes  of  a  national  political  Messiah  and  military  de- 
liverer were  vain,  that  their  proud  temple  was  to  be 
overthrown,  and  their  future  glory  to  be  found  in  frater- 
nising with  other  nations  and  not  in  conquering  them. 
That  was  more  than  they  could  stand.  The  very  masses 
that  could  shout  Hosanna  to  a  son  of  David,  preparing 
to  overthrow  Pilate  and  priesthood  together,  were  found 
crying  "  Crucify  him,"  when  he  stood  as  a  friend  of 
Samaritans,  a  welcomer  of  Greeks  who  called  on  him, 
and  a  man  wlio  had  plainly  found  favour  with  the  Roman 
governor.  The  mob  was  lashed  to  frenzy  when  they  saw 
Pilate  trying  to  protect  him. 

But  why  should  Pilate,  as  is  recorded,  have  steadily 
set  himself  to  save  Jesus  ?  Partly  no  doubt  because  he 
was  impressed  by  the  grandeur  of  the  man  ;  but  also,  it 
is  probable,  he  felt  that  no  popular  man  could  just  then 


ITS  MORNLYG  STAR.  37 


serve  the  secular  authority  better  than  one  engaged  in 
destroying  those  expectations  of  a  coming  national 
deliverer— of  a  kind  which  sometimes  fulfil  themselves 
— by  substituting  for  them  enthusiasm  for  a  moral  and 
religious  reformation.  Nothing  could  have  satisfied 
Pilate  more  than  that  the  Jews  should  have  generally 
agreed  to  such  a  King  of  the  Jews  as  he  over  whose 
dying  head  he  wrote  that  title.  We  may  indeed  compare 
with  Pilate's  inscription  Christ's  own  outburst  of  wonder 
when  a  poor  fisherman  named  him  the  Anointed  of  God. 
"  Flesh  and  blood  "  could  never  have  attested  that  there 
lay  any  divine  mark  about  that  homeless  helpless  man. 
There  was  something  transcendental  in  all  this,  and,  as 
we  have  seen,  it  flamed  on  through  the  years  of  early 
enthusiasm. 

XI. 

Some  years  ago  I  sat  with  an  assembly  in  the  open 
theatre  at  Oberammergau  to  witness  the  Passion  Play. 
The  stage  was  tastefully  adorned.  On  the  curtain  was  a 
picture  of  Jerusalem,  with  the  mountains  rising  around  it 
as  they  rose  around  us.  All  about  us  were  symbols  of 
the  most  ancient  German  religion  sweetly  blending  with 
those  of  early  Christianity.  On  the  stage  architrave  was 
the  Madonna  holding  the  goddess  Bertha's  rose,  whose 
crimson  symbolised  a  new  Heart  come  to  watch  over  the 
humble  household  ;  and  the  pelican  feeding  her  young 
with  her  blood  :  emblems  now  of  man's  long  search  to 


3S  CHRISTIANITY. 


find  attestations  in  nature  of  an  unnatural  faith,  ending 
still  in  fables  !  The  old  sacred  trees  of  mythology  were 
there,  the  beech  and  birch  and  pine,  and  the  birds  sang 
gaily  in  their  green  branches. 

The  ancient  symbols  of  faith  had  gi-own  as  naturally 
as  the  trees,  the  heart  could  carol  amid  them  like  the 
birds,  while  the  blue  of  heaven  and  the  blessed  sunshine 
poured  their  warm  and  tender  light  upon  them  all. 

But  what  was  the  figure  we  were  presently  to  see 
moving  amid  that  glorious  frame,  and  bearing  the  name  of 
Christ !  Never  before  then  had  I  realised  how  low  had 
sunk  the  idea  of  that  beautiful  heroic  soul,  in  the  con- 
ventional conception  of  Christendom.  From  first  to  last 
this  Christ  of  the  Passion  Play,  made  up  to  look  like  the 
images  turned  out  by  thousands  in  Italian  factories,  was 
about  as  wooden  as  one  of  those  images  were  it  only 
automatic.  It  was  a  mere  perfunctory  high  priest,  a 
characterless  efiigy— no  touch  of  humanity  about  him 
no  sparkle  of  feeling,  no  real  wrath,  no  reality  of  any  kind. 
Not  for  a  moment  could  this  effect  be  ascribed  to  the 
actor  :  he  acted  faithfully  the  conception  of  Christ  which 
had  been  drilled  into  him  by  the  priests  who  manage  the 
affair.  The  Bavarians  all  regarded  it  as  perfect,  for  not 
one  of  them  had  ever  dreamed  of  associating  true  and 
simple  human  emotion  or  action  with  Jesus.  They  were 
looking  on  a  god,  accepting  every  unreality  as  a  token  of 
how  divine  he  was, — so  admirably  unhuman  !  But  I  will 
say,  even  for  those  poor  peasants,  that  at  no  time  did  they 
evince  such  horror  at  the  careful  crucifixion  of  Christ  as 


ITS  MORNING  STAR.  39 

they  did  Avlicn  the  thieves'  legs  were  broken.  Humanly 
speaking,  Christ  did  not  suffer  so  much  as  the  thieves. 
And  as  to  the  god, — how  could  a  few  hours  of  physical 
jjain  be  anything  to  one  engaged  in  the  glorious  work  of 
saving  a  world  on  his  way  to  share  the  throne  of  the 
univer.se  ? 

There  were  numbers  of  English  people  there,  most  of 
them  clergymen.  I  took  some  pains  to  learn  their  opinion 
concerning  the  play  and  its  chief  character,  and  their 
enthusiasm  was  boundless.  Coming  home  1  found  that 
books,  articles,  letters,  had  been  written,  all  full  of 
glowing  eulogies  of  the  Ammergau  Christ,  and  some 
speculator  was  proposing  in  the  Times  to  get  up  the  same 
thing  in  London.  I  have  tried  to  lind  some  one  who 
was  shocked,  to  discover  some  criticism  which  should 
intimate  that  this  passionless  simulacrum,  who  could 
neither  laugh  nor  cry  nor  strike  back,  was  not  the  European 
ideal  of  a  man.  In  sooth,  he  was  as  much  like  a  man  as 
the  Phantasm  which  demanded  his  sacrifice  was  like  a 
god.     It  was  the  apotheosis  of  abjectness. 

Precisely  opposite  in  every  respect  to  the  perfunctory 
conventional  Christ, — with  his  unioal  difticultics,  which 
he  knows  he  will  conquer,  and  his  affectation  of  the  sor- 
rows and  feelings  of  men  who  must  fight  their  troubles 
with  no  angel  or  reserved  omnipotence  to  help, — is  the 
man  whom  the  gospels  portray  on  any  mind  not  taught 
to  portray  him  beforehand  on  the  gospels.  A  man  of 
quick  sensibilities,  who  can  flash  anger  on  his  best  friends 
when  they  would  drive  off  the  children,  and  in  another 


CHRISTIANITY. 


moment  be  all  sunshine  as  the  little  ones  nestle  to  his 
heart.  A  man  who  can  fulminate  lightnings  of  invective 
against  hypocritical  deceivers  of  the  people,  when  his 
heart  is  ready  to  break  with  agony  for  his  beloved  Jeru- 
salem. Impulsive,  sympathetic,  and  sometimes  wonder- 
fully prudent,  with  the  eloquence  that  speaks  from  a  deep 
conviction — with  authority  of  conviction,  not  that  of  the 
scribes — so  that  even  rude  policemen  sent  to  arrest  him 
return  empty-handed,  and  say  only  "never  man  spake 
like  this  man ;"  a  man  who  knows  the  power  of  silence, 
and  then  as  a  sheep  before  his  shearers  is  dumb  ! 

The  conventional  European  Christ — the  Christ  of 
Ammergau — marches  on  to  his  cross  by  a  prescribed 
foreknown  path,  fulfilling  hard  and  fast  theological  con- 
ditions. The  real  Christ  escapes  whenever  he  can,  slips 
out  of  the  hand  of  his  pursuers,  and  when  death  over- 
takes him  at  last  views  it  with  anguish  and  dismay.  Other 
martyrs  have  sung  at  the  stake ;  he  cries,  "  My  God,  my 
God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  !  " 

That  cry  could  never  have  been  wrung  from-  the 
lips  of  a  man  who  saw  in  his  own  death  a  pre-arranged 
plan  for  the  world's  salvation,  and  his  own  return  to  divine 
glory,  temporarily  renounced  for  transient  misery  on 
earth.  The  fictitious  theology  of  a  thousand  years 
shrivels  beneath  the  awful  anguish  of  that  cry.  He 
forsaken  by  God  !  Why  he  urns  God.  says  Theology, 
and  this  was  the  supreme  act  of  his  divinity  !  That 
Christ  might  have  known  if  he  had  been  trained  in  the 
smallest  of  our  theological  schools.     But  he  had  not  that 


ITS  MORNING  STAR.  41 

advantage.  To  him  untimely  Death  brought  pain  and 
unmitigated  disappointment.  It  seemed  the  end  of  all 
the  good  he  could  do  for  humanity.  He  at  least  was 
not  acting  in  a  Passion  Play.  Again  and  again  had 
Christ  tried  to  escape  this  danger,  even  with  dexterit}-, 
and  on  his  trial  he  fenced  with  every  art  of  speech  and 
silence.  When  he  saw  the  coils  of  priestly  hatred  closing 
around  him,  his  soul  was  exceeding  sorrowful.  Death 
haunted  him.  When  a  woman  anointed  him  tenderly, 
the  odour  reminded  him  of  death.  "  She  embalms  me 
for  burial,"  he  cries,  and  his  very  words  shudder.  He 
meets  his  disciples  at  supper  ;  but  when  he  sees  and 
tastes  the  red  wine,  that  too  suggests  death :  he  recoils, 
and  cries  "  It's  my  blood  !  Drink  it  yourselves — I'll  never 
taste  it  again  ! " 

It  took  many  centuries  for  such  ejaculations  of  a  man 
facing  ])remature  and  violent  death  to  harden  into  the 
formal  speeches  of  New  Testament  tradition,  and  longer 
still  to  fossilise  into  sacraments  and  dogmas.  Under 
these  formal  dogmatic  sophistications  the  masses  of 
Christendom  have  been  so  long  moulded  that  it  is  hardly 
to  be  conceived  that  they  can  ever  recover  the  genuine 
Christ,  or  come  into  contact  with  his  spontaneous  life, 
his  heart,  his  genius.  And  fortunately,  it  is  not  a  matter 
of  eternal  life  and  death  that  they  should.  Yet  we  may 
hope  that  so  soon  as  the  people  have  been  educated  out 
of  the  degrading  superstition  that  a  man's  eternal  well- 
being  or  wretchedness  depend  on  a  particular  opinion 
about  a  person  who  lived  in  an  obscure  age  and  region. 


42  CHRIST  I ANI I  Y. 


they  will  at  least  be  free  of  that  paral}sing  fear  which 
has  turned  Christ  to  a  graven  image.  And  though  it  be 
not  a  matter  of  life  and  death,  still  it  is  a  grateful  and  a 
noble  task  to  rescue  the  memory  of  a  great  man  from  the 
perversions  and  superstitions  with  which  he  has  been 
invested,  and  preser\'e  to  our  human  nature  every  token 
and  example  of  its  power  to  rise  above  the  animalism 
which  degrades  and  the  evil  which  afflicts  it,  and  ascend 
to  the  heisfhts  of  excellence  and  beatitude. 


II 


ITS    DAWN. 


ITS    DAWN. 
I. 


Ig^gjHRISTIANITYis  about  fifteen  hundred  years 
H^%|  old.  That  is  about  the  age  of  the  completed 
Nicene  Creed  which  first  combined  into  a 
distinct  doctrinal  system  its  previously  incoherent  ele- 
ments. As  an  ecclesiastical  and  temporal  power  it  is 
somewhat  older,  dating  from  the  conversion  (A.D.  312) 
of  Constantine,  who  held  his  new  beliefs  mixed  up  with 
paganism,  as  did  most  of  the  Latin  Christians.  The 
name  Christianity  is  first  found  used  by  the  opponents  ot 
the  Christians — such  as  Pliny  the  Younger,  early  in  the 
second  century, — but  used  as  name  for  a  crime  not  for 
a  system  of  doctrine  ;  as  meaning  that  it  is  much  later. 
Although  the  word  Christianity  is  not  found  in  the  New 
Testament,  the  word  "  Christian,"  which  by  no  means 
implies  as  yet  the  existence  of  a  system,  occurs  in  the 
New  Testament  {Acts  xi,  26;  xxvi,  28;  i  Peter  iv,  16) 
three  times ;  it  is  in  the  later  books,  and  is  used  in  a 
sense  indicating  that  it  was  a  term  of  reproach  or  con- 
tempt directed  against  the  believers  in  Christ.  It  is  a 
slang  word,  mixed  of  Greek  and  Latin.  The  efforts  which 


46  CHRISTIANITY. 

have  been  made  to  prove  by  the  sentence  (Acts  xi), 
"  The  disciples  were  first  called  Christians  in  Antioch," 
that  they  adopted  that  title  in  the  first  century,  while 
Paul  was  preaching  there,  is  disproved  by  the  fact  that 
Paul  warned  his  friends  against  calling  themselves  after 
the  name  of  Christ  (i  Cor.  i,  12).  Paul's  failure  to 
recognise  the  title  when  Agrippa  uses  it  was  very  marked. 
Tacitus  says  : — "  So  for  the  quieting  of  this  rumour"  {of 
his  having  set  fire  to  Rome)  "Nero  judicially  charged  with 
the  crime,  and  punished  with  most  studied  severities, 
that  class  hated  for  their  general  wickedness,  whom  the 
vulgar  (valgus)  call  Christians.  The  originator  of  that 
name  was  one  Christ,  who  in  the  reign  of  Tiberias  suffered 
death  by  sentence  of  the  procurator,  Pontius  Pilate. 
The  detestable  superstition  (exitiabilis  superstitio)  thereby 
repressed  for  the  time,  again  broke  out,  not  only  over 
judea,  the  native  soil  of  the  mischief,  but  in  the  city  also, 
where  from  every  side  all  atrocious  and  abominable  things 
collect  and  flourish."' 

Looking  beyond  the  form  of  Christianity  to  its  elements, 
we  might  follow  Bishop  Sherlock  as  he  followed  Augustine, 
and  say  that  Christianity  is  as  old  as  the  Creation,  but 
for  the  very  unphilosophical  character  of  the  phrase.  One 
religion  differs  from  another  mainly  by  the  outward  ex- 
pression and  body  it  gives  to  the  moral  and  religious 
sentiment.  To  say  that  Christianity  is  as  old  as  the 
Creation  is  as  misleading  as  to  say  that  Steam-power  is 
as  old  as  the  Creation,  whicli  in  a  sense  is  equally  true. 
Christianity  represents  a  special  embodiment  and  definite 
application  of  that  religious  sentiment  which  has  always 


ITS  DA  WN.  47 


existed,  which  has  been  variously  organised  in  the  other  re- 
ligions of  the  world  ;  and  its  history  is  known.  Like  other 
religions  it  may  be  viewed  in  three  chief  aspects  :  i,  as  a 
moral  system  ;  2,  as  a  philosophy  ;  3,  as  a  mythology. 

Our  ])resent  task  is  to  trace  these  several  elements  from 
their  proximate  sources  to  their  confluence  and  combina- 
tion as  Christianity. 

II. 

As  a  moral  sj'stem  Christianity  is  mainly  Jiiwish.  In 
saying  this  I  do  not  refer  to  the  fundamental  laws  against 
murder,  theft,  and  the  like,  which  are  common  to  all 
historic  relig"ions  ;  nor  to  such  maxims  as  the  Golden 
Rule,  which  was  not  unly  always  a  current  Levitical  rule 
in  Judea,  but  has  been  of  immemorial  use  among  all 
great  races.  But  the  ethics  of  Christianity  are  distinctive 
only  as  those  of  other  systems  are,  that  is,  in  those  respects 
in  which  their  moral  laws  are  not  based  upon  the  uni- 
versal conscience.  Such  unique  moral  laws  arc  in  any 
country  generally  found  bearing  in  the  direction  of  man's 
supposed  duty  to  God,  or  of  those  actions  whose  per- 
formance is  meant  to  bring  man  into  favour  with  God. 
In  this  respect  Christianity  mainly  repeats  the  laws  and 
rules  of  the  Essenes,  a  sect  which  had  divided  from  the 
Pharisees  some  two  centuries  before  the  birth  of  Christ. 
We  have  ample  information  concerning  this  sect  from 
IMiilo  and  Josephus.  They  lived  in  communities,  and  did 
not  marry, — depending,  not  without  reason  as  Pliny 
declare-^,  upon  conversions  and  initiations  from  the  out- 
side world  for  their  continuance  and  growth.     They  pro- 


4S  CHRISTIANITY. 


fessed  to  find  a  mystical,  or  allegorical  sense  in  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  even  to  the  smallest  jot  and  tittle. 
A  convert  after  undergoing  a  year's  probation  was  baptized. 
After  a  further  probation  he  was  received  into  full  mem- 
bership. If  a  member  committed  a  fault  he  was  privately 
reproved  by  the  elders  ;  if  he  did  not  repent  he  was  re- 
proved before  the  community ;  and  if  he  then  did  not 
reform  he  was  excommunicated.  They  placed  before 
every  member  the  following  eight  degrees  which  might 
be,  successively  and  with  increasing  difficulty,  attained. 
I.  Outward  or  bodily  purity  by  baptism;  a  symbol  of 
which,  given  to  each,  was  an  apron,  such  as  was  used  to 
dry  one's  self  with  after  baptism.  2.  The  stage  at  which 
the  vow  of  celibacy  was  taken.  3.  Inward  or  spiritual 
purity.  4.  The  banishment  of  all  anger  and  malice,  and 
the  cultivation  of  a  meek  and  lowly  spirit.  5.  Holiness. 
6.  Fitness  to  become  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  to 
prophesy.  7.  The  devotee  advanced  to  that  state  when 
he  could  perform  miraculous  cures,  and  raise  the  dead. 
8.  And  finally,  he  who  had  reached  such  a  rare  degree  of 
sanctity  and  power  as  the  seventh,  would  fulfil  the  office 
of  Elias,  as  forerunner  of  the  Messiah.  These  people 
lived  as  hermits  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem,  along 
the  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Alexandria.  They  would  never  pray  in  synagogues,  and 
sent  their  offerings  privately.  They  were  non-resistants, 
refused  to  take  oaths,  and  forbade  Essenes  to  go  to  law. 
They  were  especially  antagonistic  to  the  Pharisees,  because 
these  believed  in  the  outward  law  without  acknowledging 
any  mysterious  sense  in  it. 


ITS  DA  WN.  49 


The  New  Testament  opens  with  the  appearance  of  a 
great  prophet,  John  the  Baptist,  whose  dress  and  speech 
are  those  of  an  Essene,  and  who  denounces  other  sects 
without  including  that.  Probably  his  movement  indicated 
some  variations  from  the  early  Essenism ;  but.  however  that 
may  be,  Jesus  became  one  of  John's  converts,  and  was 
baptized  by  him.  For  a  time  he  preached  the  Essene 
doctrines,  and  practised  them.  He  did  not  marry,  and 
recognised  the  exalted  condition  of  those  who  made  them- 
selves eunuchs  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven's  sake 
(Matt,  xix,  12).  He  taught  non-resistance,  selling  all 
one's  possessions  for  the  sake  of  the  poor,  and  baptism. 
Presently  we  find  him  gradually  taking  on  the  appearance 
of  a  type,  rather  than  of  a  real  person, — a  sort  of  Essene 
allegory,  going  through  the  eight  stages  : — baptism,  the 
anti-marriage  state,  inward  purification,  manifestations  of 
the  meek  and  lowly  state  of  mind,  reception  of  the  holy 
spirit  in  his  body  as  a  temple  (transfiguration),  and 
prophecy,  curing  diseases  and  raising  the  dead,  and  finally 
— the  eighth  state,  that  of  Elias,  being  awarded  to  John — 
becoming  the  Messiah. 

This  development  and  process  is  too  normal  and  regular 
not  to  excite  our  suspicion.  I  have  already  noted  (c.  i) 
some  of  the  indirect  and  unintentional  testimony  in  the 
New  Testament  showing  that  Jesus  by  no  means  adhered 
rigidly  to  the  Essone  sect.  It  is  especially  remarked  that  he 
never  baptised  any  one,  and  his  direction  to  his  disciples 
to  baptise  becomes  very  doubtful  when  we  further  find 
Paul  thanking  God  that  he  had  baptised  none.  Moreover 
there  is  a  tradition  of  his  having  attended  a  wedding,  of 

D 


50  CHRISTIANITY. 


his  eating  with  publicans  and  sinners,  and  his  disregarding 
the  Sabbath,  all  of  which  are  inconsistent  with  his  really 
having  remained  with  the  sect  even  so  far  as  it  may  have 
been  represented  by  John  the  Baptist.  But  we  shall  often 
have  to  observe  how  little  the  individual  mind  and  character 
of  Christ  had  to  do  with  shaping  Christianity.  The 
Essene  moral  machinery  caught  him  up  and  made  him 
over  into  its  model  saint,  to  so  large  an  extent  that  we 
shall  never  perhaps  know  how  far  during  life  he  really 
followed  that  sect.  When  the  system  of  Christianity 
was  finally  formed  we  find  its  moral  elements,  beyond 
those  common  to  all  religions,  to  be  Essene, — namely, 
baptism,  celibacy,  communism  among  the  most  holy 
and  sacramental  communion  as  a  relic  of  it  among  the 
less  holy,  religious  orders  with  initiations,  secret  signs 
resembling  those  of  the  Essene  hermits  of  Syria  and 
Egypt.  There  is  much  abjectness  calling  itself  lowly, 
and  mendicancy  aping  self-denial.  There  are  elders  with 
powers  of  private  rebuke  and  public  excommunication. 
The  becoming  of  temples  for  the  Holy  Ghost  reappears 
as  ecstasy,  and  there  are  saints  claiming  power  to  work 
miracles.  All  this  represented  a  scheme  of  sanctity  which 
from  many  more  primitive  sources  had  cohered  in  the 
Essene  sect,  and,  through  the  prestige  of  Christ,  passed 
to  be  the  inheritance  of  Christianity. 


III. 


The  Christian  Philosophy  is  much  less  simple  as  to  its 
sources.     It   resulted  from  a  most  singular  interchange 


ITS  DA  WN.  5« 


and  interaction  at  great  intervals  between  the  Semitic  and 
the  Hellenic  minds.  At  some  very  early  period  the, 
Greeks  had  derived  from  the  Hebrews  the  worst  feature  of 
their  religion, — that  of  Human  Sacrifices.  This  was  an 
idea  alien  to  the  Aryan  race  from  which  they  sprang.  It 
was  a  famous  point  made  by  Buddha  against  the  Brahmins, 
that  if  they  thought  the  gods  were  fond  of  precious 
ofiferings  they  ought  logically  to  offer  their  own  children. 
The  first  cases  of  human  sacrifices  among  the  Greeks  were 
sufficiently  isolated  to  be  made  the  themes  of  great  poems. 
The  salient  instance  of  Iphigenia,  who  was  vowed  to  a 
deity,  but  not  sacrificed, — a  kid  having  been  miraculously 
substituted  for  her, — bears  in  it  traces  of  having  been 
mixed  from  the  story  of  Abraham  and  Isaac,  for  whom  a 
ram  was  substituted,  and  that  of  Jephthah's  daughter, 
whose  name  is  probably  travestied  in  Iphigenia.  The 
Greeks,  having  borrowed  this  notion,  elaborated  it  into 
a  sort  of  theosophic  conception  that  the  stern  deities 
could  only  be  appeased  by  sacrifice  of  the  most  pure, 
unblemished,  virginal  beings,  and  it  remained  a  theory  and 
sentiment  among  them  long  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  a 
practical  part  of  the  Hebrew  religion. 

Meanwhile  the  Hebrews  had  come  under  Greek  influ- 
ence, and  for  some  centuries  before  Christ  had  gradually 
been  personifying  the  Wisdom  of  God.  In  the  poetry 
of  the  Old  Testament  much  is  said  of  the  "Word" 
of  Jehovah.  We  find  it  recurring  in  the  Psalms, — "  By 
the  Word  of  Jehovah  were  the  heavens  made  ;  "  "he  sent 
his  Word  and  healed  them  ;  "  "  his  Word  runneth  veiy 
swiftly."   Then  we  find,  as  I  have  said,  "  Wisdom  "  more 


CHRISTIANITY. 


clearly  personified,  especially  in  the  writings  ascribed  to 
Solomon, — "  Doth  not  Wisdom  cry  ? "  "  Where  shall 
Wisdom  be  found  ?  "  Wisdom  speaks,  saying — "  Jehovah 
possessed  me  in  the  beginning  of  his  way.  Before  his- 
works  of  old.  I  was  set  up  from  everlasting.  Then  was 
I  by  him  as  one  brought  up  with  him.  And  I  was  daily  his- 
delight,  rejoicing  always  before  him."  When  we  come  to 
the  region  of  time  covered  by  the  Apocryphal  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Talmud  we  find  the  course 
of  personification  has  so  far  advanced  that  Jehovah  is  no 
longer  alone, — that  the  "  Word  "  and  "Wisdom  "have 
blended  to  form  a  being  capable  of  being  further  identified 
with  the  "  Logos  "  of  Plato,  which  had  undergone  a  similar 
process  at  the  hands  of  the  Platonic  School  of  Alexandria. 
It  so  happened  that  the  head  of  that  school,  at  the  time 
of  Christ's  appearance,  was  a  learned  Jew  named  Philo. 
His  great  aim  was  to  recommend  Jewish  ideas  to  his 
Hellenic  philosophers  and  friends,  and,  chiefly  through 
him,  the  identity  of  the  personified  "  Wisdom  "  and  the 
"  Logos "  was  already  established.  But  it  was  still  an 
invisible  ideal  until  that  great  work — the  Fourth  Gospel 
— appeared.  Who  wrote  that  book  no  man  knows.  All 
that  we  know  is  that  it  was  written  by  an  Alexandrine 
philosopher  about  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century, 
and  that  it  had  a  distinctly  theoretical  purpose.  It  was 
the  keystone  which  completed  the  arch  formed  by  the 
Hebrew  "  Wisdom "  on  one  side,  and  the  Hellenic 
••Logos"  on  the  other. 

Next  we  have   to   consider  Paul,  who   had  imported 
other  ideas  into  the  swelling  mass  of  theory.     Brought  up 


ITS  DA  WN.  53 

a  Pharisee,  and  still  preserving  so  much  of  his  original 
belief  that  when  accused  he  did  not  hesitate  to  cry  "  I 
am  a  Pharisee,"  Paul  aimed  to  have  his  idea  of  Christ 
fulfil  that  sacrificial  notion  which  he  found  as  deeply 
rooted  among  the  Gentiles  as  among  his  own  countrymen. 
The  deity  was  to  be  soothed  by  immolation  of  the  purest 
and  best ;  but  as  the  world  was  now  refined  beyond  the 
coarse  and  literal  sacrifice  of  Macarias  and  Iphigenias, 
Christ  was  represented  by  him  as  such  an  exceedingly 
pure  and  perfect  being  that  he  would  answer  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  all  other  sacrifices,  and  for  the  human  race  in 
all  ages.  This  idea,  coarse  as  it  now  appears,  denoted 
in  its  day  a  distinct  ascent  of  the  human  mind  above 
one  more  repulsive. 

When  Paul — whose  voice  and  theme  inspired  from  afar 
the  eloquent  but  unknown  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews— established  this  point,  he  had  not  the  slightest 
anticipation  of  the  new  philosophy  which  was  to  arise 
and  embody  itself  in  the  gospel  said  to  be  written  after 
traditions  received  from  John.  But  Paul  did  other  impor- 
tant work  towards  forming  Christianity,  principally  by 
breaking  down  Jewish  exclusiveness,  the  partition-wall 
between  Jew  and  Gentile— and  preparing  the  way  for 
the  new  faith  to  become  a  general  religion  instead  of 
merely  another  Jewish  sect.  When  Christianity  came  to 
be  formulated  by  the  two  great  Nicene  Councils  (a.d.  3*-5 
.and  381)  these  elements  were  already  prepared.  The 
doctrine  of  the  personality  of  the  Holy  Ghost  has  an 
archaeological  history  too  long  to  be  traced  here  ;  nor  is 
Ihat  aecessary,  for,  so  far  as  its  appearance  in  Christianitj 


54  CHRISTIANITY. 

is  concerned,  we  need  look  for  its  origin  no  farther  than 
the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  Egyptian 
Paganism  still  insisted  on  three  gods ;  Philosophy  de- 
manded unity  :  the  compromise  was  a  triune  godhead. 

The  doctrine  of  a  personal  Spirit  of  Evil,  originating  in 
Persia,  had  invested  some  centuries  before  the  birth  of 
Christ  an  Assyrian  angel  of  Accusation,  — Satan,^and 
he  had  become  degraded  from  a  retributive  agent  of  God 
into  a  fiend.  There  was  no  philosophy  of  evil  at  the  time 
to  secure  even  the  mind  of  Christ  against  this  idea.  And, 
indeed,  however  repulsive  it  may  be  now,  at  that  period 
it  seemed  essential  to  the  growth  of  a  pure  ideal  of  God,  as 
infinite  Love,  with  whom  the  origination  of  evil  could  not 
be  associated.  The  world  was  recoiling  from  the  worship 
of  demons  under  guise  of  deities,  and  the  new  ideal  was 
secured  by  attributing  all  phenomena  of  evil  to  imps, 
furies,  dragons, — all  of  which  were  ultimately  generalised 
by  Christianity  into  Satan,  whose  works  it  was  the  mission 
of  Christ  to  destroy. 

IV. 

We  come  now  to  consider  the  Christian  Mythology. 
Under  this  title  I  include  all  those  supernatural  narratives 
in  the  New  Testament  upon  which  Christianity  rested 
its  authority  over,  and  against,  human  conscience  and 
reason.  I  know  well  that  there  are  some  able  men  who  do 
not  regard  these  miracles  as  purely  mythical  or  fictitious. 
They  say,  and  it  is  perfectly  true,  that  there  are  many 
instances  in  history,  especially  in  periods  of  religious 
excitement,   when  men  and  women  afflicted  with  disease 


ITS  DA  WN.  55 


have  experienced  remarkable  physiological  effects,  and 
even  temporary  cures,  from  the  word  or  touch  of  an  indi- 
vidual in  whose  magical  powers  they  had  faith.  I  should 
be  perfectly  ready  to  concede  that  some  of  the  apparently 
marvellous  actions  ascribed  to  Christ  might  be  found  by 
analysis  not  subversive  of  natural  laws.  But  before  having 
to  explain  them  or  account  for  them  on  rational  or  scientific 
principles,  it  is  first  of  all  necessary  to  inquire  whether 
there  be  any  testimony  of  importance  showing  that 
anything  of  the  kind  was  believed  to  have  occurred  by 
those  who  must  have  witnessed  or  heard  of  them  if 
they  did  occur. 

Now,  in  the  case  of  the  alleged  miracles  performed  by 
Christ,  we  have  the  very  strongest  evidence  that  he  never 
did  work  them,  nor  anything  like  them,  that  he  never 
professed  to  work  them,  that  he  regarded  the  whole 
principle  of  miracle-working  with  contempt. 

In  the  first  place  we  have  his  own  words,  when  asked 
for  a  sign.  He  replies,  "A  wicked  and  adulterous  genera- 
tion seeketh  after  a  sign,  and  there  will  no  sign  be  given 
to  it."  It  is  true  that  to  this  is  added,  "but  the  sign  of 
the  prophet  Jonah.  For  as  Jonah  was  three  days  and 
nights  in  the  whale's  belly,  so  will  the  Son  of  Man  be 
three  days  and  nights  in  the  heart  of  the  earth."  But  we 
have  reason  to  believe  that  this  reference  to  Jonah  was 
not  made  by  Christ,  inasmuch  as  it  rests  only  on  the 
authority  of  judaising  Matthew,  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
anticipates  the  legend  of  his  resurrection  after  three  days ' 
burial,  which  could  only  have  arisen  after  his  death.  But, 
it  may  be  asked,  by  what  right  do  you  take  one  part  of 


CHRISTIANITY. 


the  utterance  as  genuine  and  reject  the  other  ?  I  answer, 
simply  because  the  writer  of  a  gospel  full  of  signs  and 
wonders  would  never  have  invented  so  sharp  a  rebuke  of 
signs  and  wonders ;  but  when  he  had  to  report  such  an 
utterance  he  might  naturally  have  tried  to  soften  it  by 
interpolating  an  exception  in  favour  of  the  resurrection, — 
the  main  sign  around  which  the  believers  were  gathering, 
— and  its  supposed  prefiguration  in  the  story  of  Jonah. 
Again,  in  his  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus,  Christ 
represents  Abraham  as  saying,  "  If  they  hear  not  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  neither  would  they  be  persuaded  though 
one  rose  from  the  dead."  Startled  they  mig"ht  be,  but 
not  really  persuaded  of  the  truth  as  he  wished  men  to  be 
persuaded  who  said,  "  Why  even  of  your  own  selves 
judge  ye  not  what  is  right ;"  who  pointed  men  to  the  light 
and  cloud  of  morning  and  evening  and  bade  them  discern 
the  signs  of  their  time  as  they  did  the  weather  in  the  sky ; 
who  chose  his  texts  and  parables  from  nature — the  lily, 
the  mustard-seed,  the  falling  sparrow. 

The  high  improbabiUty  that  a  mind  such  as  this  should 
have  also  claimed  to  work  the  very  signs  against  which 
he  protested,  is  corroborated  by  the  absence  of  any 
reference  to  such  performances  in  the  writings  of  his 
contemporaries.  Here  was  Philo,  who  was  twenty  years 
of  age  when  Christ  was  bom  and  who  lived  long  after 
his  death.  If  any  man  had  appeared  at  Jerusalem  pro- 
fessing to  be  a  Messiah  and  working  wonders,  there  is  no 
man  whom  the  news  would  reach  more  certainly  than 
Philo  ;  yet  we  do  not  find  the  least  allusion  to  such 
things  in  any  of  that  writer's  various  works.    Again  there 


ITS  DAWN.  57 


was  Josephus,  who  wrote  a  minute  account  of  the  Jews 
and  their  history,  including  the  affairs  of  that  very  period. 
He  appeared  in  the  first  generation  after  Christ's  death. 
And  yet  we  do  not  find  in  his  work  that  even  any  rumours 
existed  of  a  man  working  miracles  or  wonders.  Next  we 
have  Clement,  who,  we  know,  wrote  in  the  same  century 
in  which  Christ  died,  mentioned  by  Paul  as  his  fellow- 
labourer.  Clement  wrote  an  Epistle,  known  to  be  a 
genuine  production  of  the  first  century,  in  which  no 
allusion  is  made  to  any  miracle  wTOUght  by  Christ  or  his 
Apostles.  The  same  is  true  of  Ignadus,  about  whom 
there  was  a  tradition  that  he  was  one  of  those  children 
that  Jesus  took  in  his  arms  :  he  died  about  a  hundred 
years  after  Christ's  birth,  but  left  no  mention  of  the 
miracles.  Both  Pliny  and  Tacitus  mention  Christ  and 
the  Christians,  but  neither  hint  that  any  miracles  were 
spoken  of  in  their  time,  that  is,  at  the  close  of  the  first 
and  beginning  of  the  second  century.  And  finally,  there 
are  the  voluminous  WTitings  of  Paul,  writings  by  a  man 
whose  birth  in  Jerusalem  was  very  near  the  period  of 
Christ's  death, — if,  indeed,  it  did  not  precede  that  event, 
since  in  his  Epistle  to  Philemon  (about  a.d.  6o)  he  speaks 
of  himself  as  "  Paul  the  aged."  Paul  does  not  allude  to 
any  miracle  wrought  by  Christ,  nor  to  any  rumour  that 
miracles  were  associated  with  his  ministry,  nor  even 
mention  the  names  of  those  afterwards  connected  with 
such  events.  Such  stories  are  related  only  in  anonymous 
writings  called  gospels,  not  professing  (unless  in  one  case 
where  we  know  the  profession  untrue)  to  be  records  by 
eye-witnesses,   traditions   collected   late   in   the    second 


S8  CHRISTIANITY. 


century,  and  by  no  means  to  be  set  against  the  works 
whose  authorship  and  early  origin  are  undisputed.  Are 
we  to  believe  that  a  man  appeared  in  the  greatest  city  of 
the  East,  wrought  miracles,  healed  the  sick,  raised  the 
dead,  and  that  all  this  was  unknown  to  the  chief  historians 
and  authors  of  his  own  era, — his  enemies  not  ridiculing 
such  stories,  his  own  devoted  Apostles  never  even  faintly 
alluding  to  them  ?     That  is  plainly  incredible. 

But  how,  then,  shall  we  account  for  the  Christian 
Mythology  as  we  find  it  in  the  canon  of  the  New 
Testament  ratified  by  the  Council  of  Carthage,  a.d.  397  ? 
Why,  the  stories  represent  only  the  familiar  fables  and 
folklore  of  the  people  swarming  in  Greece  and  Rome 
from  every  part  of  the  World.  Among  all  the  miracles  of 
the  New  Testament  not  one  is  original.  Bacchus  had 
changed  wine  into  water.  Ancient  heroes  and  sages  were 
generally  said  to  have  sprung  of  the  unions  between  the 
gods  and  daughters  of  men.  In  Arabian  Mythology 
Abraham's  birth  was  announced  by  a  star.  By  a  star 
Eneas  and  his  companions  were  guided  from  the  shores 
of  Troy  to  the  West.  The  sacred  dove  had  betokened 
to  Noah  the  emergence  of  the  world  from  its  baptism 
before  it  descended  on  Christ  at  his  baptism,  and  in  many 
lands  it  had  been  the  emblem  of  renewal,  its  note  being 
the  first  voice  of  spring.  Moses  and  Elias  also  fasted 
forty  days.  Buddha  and  Zoroaster  were  also  tempted  by 
Evil  Powers,  and  pursued  by  kings  like  Herod.  Five  or 
six  centuries  before  Christ,  Pythagoras  was  said  to  have 
miraculously  named  the  number  of  an  enormous  draught 
of  fishes, — a  legend  the  more  remarkable  because  the 


ITS  DA  WN.  59 

Egyptian  Essenes  closely  resembled  the  Pythagorean 
communities,  and  inherited  many  of  their  legends 
Pythagoras  had  power  to  still  waves  and  tempests  at 
sea.  Elijah  made  the  widow's  meal  and  oil  increase ; 
EHsha  fed  a  hundred  men  with  twenty  loaves;  the  Hindoo 
Saint  Mugdala,  giving  from  his  little  store  of  food  to 
Holy  Duriasa  finds  that  store  inexhaustible ;  many  such 
myths  preceded  that  of  the  loaves  and  fishes.  As  for 
opening  blind  eyes,  healing  diseases,  walking  on  water, 
casting  out  demons,  raising  the  dead,  resurrection,  ascen- 
sion, all  these  have  been  the  common  mythologic  currency 
of  every  race,  from  the  beginning  of  time  to  the  present, 
when  stories  of  a  similar  kind  are  firmly  credited  by  those 
who  put  their  faith  in  so-called  Spirit-mediums. 

It  is  highly  important  to  understand  the  sources  of 
Christian  Mythology,  in  order  not  to  fall  into  the  error 
of  supposing  that  the  miraculous  legends  were  invented 
l)y  the  early  Christians,  as  an  intentional  imposture. 
Such  is  by  no  means  the  fact.  The  popular  superstitions 
of  the  people  about  their  gods,  prophets,  heroes,  genii, 
had  invested  hundreds  of  forgotten  beings  before  they 
were  told  of  Pythagoras,  Bacchus  or  Elias,  and  by  the 
same  process  they  invested  Christ  and  his  mother,  and 
passed  on  to  be  told  of  the  Apostles,  and  then  of  Saints 
— like  the  first  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  who  turned  water 
into  oil  to  feed  the  lamps;  and  holy  Paul,  to  whose  cave 
St.  Anthony  came,  when  the  raven,  which  had  been 
bringing  the  hermit  a  daily  half-loaf  for  sixty  years,  now 
brought  a  whole  one  ;  and  St.  Stephen,  whose  dead  body 
restored  five  other  bodies  to  life, — oddly  enough  without 


6o  CHRISTIANITY. 

resuscitating  itself.  The  mantle  of  myth  falls  from  pro- 
phet to  prophet,  from  saint  to  saint,  and  it  represents  the 
love  and  homage  of  the  ignorant  for  the  great  whose 
influence  they  feel  but  cannot  comprehend. 

It  is  not  easy  to  acquit  the  authorities  of  the  early 
Church,  as  we  can  the  common  people,  of  dishonesty. 
They  encouraged  what  they  knew  were  superstitions,  ami 
added  to  them.  However,  it  is  fortunately  of  no  im- 
portance to  us  to  draw  the  line  between  their  credulity 
and  their  dishonesty.  It  is  enough  that  we  know  the 
pedigree  of  every  Christian  myth,  and  that  not  one  of 
them  has  any  connection  with  Christ  whatever.  Only 
one,  indeed,  was  heard  of  in  the  first  Century,  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ.  Of  that  Paul  had  heard,  and  his  eager 
belief  in  it  shows  how  ready  he  would  have  been  to  be- 
lieve Christ's  own  miracles  if  he  had  heard  of  them.  Of 
this  particular  miracle  it  need  only  be  remarked  that 
Paul's  testimony  to  it  is  valueless  for  the  supematuralist, 
since,  after  naming  those  who  had  seen  the  risen  Christ, 
he  places  all  their  evidence  on  the  same  unsatisfactory 
footing  as  his  own.  He  tells  us  that  the  only  appearance 
of  Christ  to  him  was  as  to  "  one  born  out  of  due  season," 
— which  may  mean  the  apparition  of  some  spiritual 
ecstasy,  but  at  any  rate  by  no  means  fulfils  the  conditions 
even  of  that  low  degree  of  evidence  which  any  man's 
word  or  belief  could  supply  for  such  a  fact. 

The  Mythology  had  a  long  time  in  which  to  gather 
around  Christ ;  the  stories  were  already  floating  about, 
and  the  old  forms  they  had  once  invested  were  crumb- 
ling or  discredited.  They  had  at  least  from  loo  to  200 


ITS  DAWN.  6 1 


years  to  make  their  way  into  the  traditions  about  Christ 
as  we  find  them  in  the  New  Testament ;  and  in  an  un- 
critical, unscientific  age  that  is  more  than  five  centuries  of 
England. 

But  this  I  would  observe  :  the  philosophy,  the  ascetic 
rules,  the  mythology,  which  we  have  been  tracing,  could 
not  gather  around  Christ  while  he  was  a  living  man,  nor 
around  his  name  so   long   as  it  was  associated  with  a 
personal  influence.     As  in  some  countries  villages  gather 
around  extinct  volcanoes  and  plant  their  vintages  in  the 
lava  which  once  streamed  down  their  slopes  as  fire,  so 
it  was  long  after  the  first  enthusiasm  kindled  by  Jesus 
and  John    had   cooled,  and   they  had   become  chiefly 
names  to  conjure  with^  that  the  priesthood,  whose  line 
has  never  been  broken,  fenced  in  the  hardened  lava  of 
their  hearts,  and  turned  its  subtle  quality  and  lingering 
virtues  to  their  own  ends.     Personally,  Christ's  heaviest 
blow  was  at  the  very  principle  of  a  priesthood.     When 
Christianity  was  formed  it  meant  Christ's  whole  prestige 
and   popularity    impressed   to  rebuild    that  very  power 
which  he  assailed  and  which  crucified  him. 


in, 
ITS    DAY. 


ITS    DAY. 


OR  a  thousand  years  Christianity  reigned  over 
Europe  with  undisputed  sway.  That  may  be 
called  its  Day.  What  power  the  Christian 
Hierarchy  held  may  be  partly  estimated  by  comparison 
with  the  supremacy  of  our  Courts  of  I^aw.  The  Holy 
Trinity  in  Heaven  was  the  symbol  and  authority  of  a 
mighty  engine  of  ecclesiastical  power  on  earth,  which 
brought  its  force  and  its  sanctions  to  bear  on  every  nation, 
throne,  home,  and  on  every  man,  woman,  and  child. 
The  statutes  of  this  religious  Empire  consisted  of  the 
Bible  as  codified  in  creeds,  arbitrarily  interpreted  by 
Pope  and  prelates,  and  applied  by  a  priesthood  armed 
with  the  strength  of  kings  and  nobles,  armies  and  navies. 
That  which  Tacitus  sneered  at  as  a  "detestable  supersti- 
tion," had  gained  such  ascendancy  that  the  world  saw  the 
last  of  the  Caesars  holding  the  stirrup  by  which  a  Christian 
Pontiff  mounted  his  horse — an  incident  which  signalled 
the  conquest  of  what  is  now  called  Christendom. 

It  is  sometimes  claimed  by  theologians  that  this  spread- 
ing of  Christianity  fiir  and  wide  is  in  itself  a  proof  of  its 


66  CHRISTIANITY. 


divine  origin,  and  of  the  providence  that  attended  it. 
But  on  this  it  must  be  remarked  that  its  spread  has  been 
surpassed  by  several  rival  rehgions.  Mahommedanism, — 
wielding  the  same  powers  tliat  Christianity  wielded,  the 
sword  and  authority  of  princes, — has,  in  a  far  shorter 
time,  gained  numbers  as  great  of  people  much  more  united 
and  earnest  in  their  faith.  Buddhism,  without  aid  of  the 
sword,  in  far  less  time  had  almost  doubled  Christianity 
in  numbers.  Only  a  hundred  years  ago  the  Wesleyan 
movement  was  a  despised  revival  going  on  in  the  streets 
of  English  cities  and  towns  ;  now  it  is  not  only  a  very 
large  sect  in  England,  but  the  largest  in  the  United  States. 
Any  one  who  has  observed  the  contemporary  agitation 
called  "  Spiritualism,"  may  see  how  such  movements  are 
spread.  Spiritualism  in  a  few  years  has  run  up  to  millions, 
where  in  the  same  length  of  time  the  Christian  revival  had 
not  won  a  thousand  adherents;  and  the  propagandists 
of  Spiritualism,  having  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  a  shrewd 
sceptical  age,  without  the  power  of  life  and  death  over 
gainsayers,  have  exceeded  the  numerical  triumphs  of 
Christianity  during  a  corresponding  length  of  time  after 
it  possessed  that  power.  So,  the  theory  that  the  spread 
of  Christianity  is  evidence  of  its  divine  origin,  proves 
too  much  one  way,  for  it  would  show  a  greater  provi- 
dential favour  attending  other  religions  ;  and  it  proves 
too  little  in  another  way,  for  it  leaves  us  to  ask  why  Provi- 
dence has  not  enabled  it  to  swallow  up  its  rivals. 

It  has  also  been  said  that  the  trials  and  martyrdom  of 
the  early  followers  of  the  crucified  teacher,  and  those  who 
subsequently  believed  in  him,  are  proof  of  the  truth  of 


ITS  DAY.  .  6y 

that  in  which  they  believed.  We  are  asked  whether  it 
is  possible  men  would  undergo  such  sufferings  for  a 
falsehood.  To  this  my  reply  is,  that  most  of  those 
martyrdoms  took  place  before  there  was  any  system 
rightly  called  Christianity  in  the  world.  In  those  primi- 
tive days,  before  Christianity  ascended  the  throne  of 
Europe,  the  believers  were  humble  people  who  were  con- 
fronting proud  established  religions,  such  as  Christianity 
itself  afterwards  became.  They  did  then  have  truth 
with  them — at  least  far  higher  truth  than  was  embodied 
in  the  pagan  systems  against  which  they  were  rebelling. 
That  truth  sustained  them,  filled  them  with  enthusiasm- 
It  does  not,  however,  prove  that  there  was  not  with  their 
truth  much  admixture  of  error.  When  Christianity  after- 
wards spread  through  Germany  and  Britain,  it  had  to 
propagate  itself  with  fire  and  sword;  and  many  thousand*; 
in  these  Northern  nations  were  found  as  ready  as  the 
early  believers  in  Christ  to  undergo  martyrdom  for  the 
sake  of  their  gods  and  goddesses — a  fact  which  raised  an 
inscrutable  problem  before  the  early  Christian  zealots 
themselves.  Our  ancestors  had  to  confront  the  alterna- 
tives, "  Be  baptised  or  burnt  \'  and  though  many  were 
baptised  many  others  were  burnt,  or  slain  by  such  refine- 
ments of  torture  as  having  vipers  thrust  down  their  throats. 
But  all  that  does  not  prove  that  the  pagan  martyrs  died 
for  the  truth.  Nor  docs  Christian  martyrdom  prove  that 
the  beliefs  of  the  sufferers  were  true. 

Christianity  never  numbered  a  fourth  as  many  martyrs 
as  were  sacrificed  by  itself  when  it  came  into  power. 
These  martyrs  were  not  only  pagans  but  heretics  from  its 


68  CHRISTIANITY. 


own  ranks.  Indeed,  its  constitution  from  a  society  ot 
voluntary  adherents  into  a  great  compulsory  authority, 
denotes  the  fact  that  it  gained  and  preserved  its  long"  day 
of  rule  only  against  the  protest  of  many  honest  minds, 
which  it  was  necessary  to  crush. 


II. 

Nevertheless,  Christianity  did  prevail,  and  it  is  now 
open  to  us  to  analyse  the  sources  from  which  its  power 
was  fed. 

I .  Popular  Ignorance.  There  was  no  printing-press,  no 
school :  the  masses  could  not  read.  The  it^  books  in 
existence  were  monopolised  by  the  priests.  For  untold 
ages  the  training  of  the  people  had  been  in  gross  super- 
stition, an  endless  instruction  to  make  themselves  as  blind 
as  possible,  and  to  follow  priestly  guides  implicitly,  under 
temporal  and  eternal  penalties.  Even  here,  in  this  com- 
paratively enlightened  country,  how  {q\m  are  they  Avho 
personally  study  the  laws  under  which  they  live  !  How 
naturally  we  trust  all  that  to  judges  and  lawyers  !  How 
few,  again,  study  the  laws  of  health,  or  investigate  their 
own  frames  !  The  great  mass  trust  themselves  entirely  to 
the  doctors.  In  those  early  days  the  people  surrendered 
themselves  even  more  unquestioningly  to  the  priestly 
barristers  of  heaven  and  physicians  of  the  soul.  When 
Christ  appealed  to  the  people  in  Jerusalem,  he  was  met 
with  the  cry — "  Have  any  of  the  rulers  or  Pharisees  be- 
lieved on  him?  But  this  multitude  that  knows  not  the 
law   arc   accursed."      The  great  crime    of  Christ   was, 


JTS  DA  Y.  69 

"  He  stirrcth  uj)  the  people.''  Every  such  effort  to 
induce  the  masses  to  think  for  themselves  was  sure  to  be 
crushed.  Since  the  day  when  the  man,  woman  and 
serpent  were  said  to  have  been  all  cursed  by  Jehovah 
for  a  joint  conspiracy  to  learn  something,  every  priest- 
hood has  hated  all  real  education  of  the  masse:.; ;  and 
though  in  some  countries  they  have  had  to  yield  to  the 
popular  hunger  for  knowledge,  they  still  insist  that  it  shall 
not  be  had  except  as  adulterated  with  such  drugs  ot 
superstition  as  shall  paralyse,  so  far  as  possible,  their 
ability  to  use  it. 

2.  Celibacy,  Abstention  from  marriage,  though  it 
originated  in  mere  asceticism,  was  retained  among  thi.' 
priesthood  because  it  was  found  to  be  one  of  the  most 
potent  means  of  preserving  the  Church  as  a  compact 
centralised  system.  One  can  hardly  repress  a  smile  on 
observing  how  simple  to  Pere  Hyacinthe  appears  his 
violation  of  Catholic  law  in  this  particular,  and  how  easy 
he  seems  to  think  it  would  be  for  the  Church  of  Rome  to 
relax  its  rule.  The  fact  is,  the  Church  began  by  holding 
the  celibacy  of  its  priesthood  in  a  lax  way,  and  its  whole 
l^rogress  has  gone  hand-in-hand  with  increased  strictness 
in  that  law.  The  chief  reason  why  the  Western  Church 
so  for  surpassed  the  Eastern  in  power  and  influence  was 
because  the  latter  did  not  preserve  a  celibate  priesthood. 
Lord  Bacon  said,  "  He  that  hath  a  wife  and  children  hath 
given  hostages  to  fortune."  It  is  certainly  true.  The 
man  of  family  has  given  hostages  to  his  own  state,  to  his 
community.  He  has  not  his  whole  stake  in  a  Church. 
The  Pope  cannot  say  to  that  man  who  has  an  interest  in 


70  CHRISTIANITY. 


some  locality,  a  home  where  his  affections  are  centred, 
'*Go,"  and  he  goeth,  or  "Come,"  and  he  cometh.  His 
loyalty  is  divided.  He  is  brought  under  social  influences 
that  may  be  far  removed  from  those  which  surround  the 
(distant  centre  of  an  ecclesiastical  system.  The  Roman 
Catholic  priest  has  always  been  the  trustworthy  servant  of 
Ibis  Church,  because  wherever  he  may  be  in  the  world  he 
B  moved  by  nerves  that  centre  in  Rome.  He  has  no 
'fttber  interest,  no  other  passion,  and  no  hope  of  advance- 
ment from  any  other  source.  Cut  off  from  hopes  of 
social  distinction,  political  promotion,  military  renown,  or 
family  joys,  he  is  thus  and  thus  only  in  a  position  'to  be 
absolutely  occupied  with  the  interests  of  his  Church. 
Christianity  could  never  have  reigned  in  Europe  had  it 
aot  possessed  a  priesthood  bound  to  its  service  in  body 
:ind  soul.  For  this  reason  the  Church  was  far  more  ready 
to  relax  the  rules  of  morality  than  of  that  which  pre- 
sented a  priest  from  having  a  legal  wife  and  family.  It 
was.  but  very  slowly  that  the  English  people  and  clergy, 
even  when  the  Reformation  began,  could  bear  the  idea 
©f  a  married  priesthood  ;  and, they  were  more  wilUng  to 
recognise  illegal  than  legal  relations.  The  Archbishop 
of  York  took  an  oath  that  he  was  not  legally  married, 
though  he  was  ;  and  Cranmer,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
for  a  long  time  carried  about  his  wife  concealed  in  a  large 
chest  with  breathing  holes  in  it.  From  the  day  tliat  the 
English  clergy  began  to  marry  Romanism  declined,  not 
only  as  a  power  but  as  a  system  of  doctrine  ;  for  the 
priesthood  was  subjected  to  all  those  social  influences 
which  make  the  progress  of  mankind. 


ITS  DA  Y.  71 

3.  The  Confessional.  This  institution  no  doubt  origi- 
nated in  the  natural  influence  exerted  by  wise  and  sympa- 
thetic individuals  over  the  humble  people  who  came  to 
them  for  counsel  or  support.  When  this  pure  and  simple 
influence  was  formulated  and  invested  with  the  right  of 
t:ommand  under  shelter  ot  secrecy,  the  Church  was  able 
to  spring  its  engine  upon  the  individual  with  immense 
power.  It  was  able  to  utilise  the  intimate  condition,  the 
morbid  fears,  the  sentiment  of  each  man  and  woman.  It 
could  ferret  out  secrets  and  turn  them  to  strength.  No 
conspiracy  against  its  authority  could  escape  detection  in 
the  confessional.  Every  sin  confessed  made  the  poor 
penitent  a  slave.  The  priest  had  each  offender  in  his 
power,  whose  secret  he  knew ;  and,  if  his  authority  in  the 
community  were  assailed,  his  menaced  retainers  were  all 
around  to  sustain  the  detective,  who  himself  had  no  family 
or  any  corresponding  interest  at  stake. 

4.  Sanctions.  Christianity  possessed  the  right  to  punish 
every  offence  or  unbelief  to  any  extent,  even  with  death  : 
by  this  means  it  was  able  to  silence  all  who  ventured  to 
criticise  its  creeds,  and  to  reward  largely  those  who  main- 
tained them  with  special  devotion.  It  was  thus  able  to 
press  into  its  service  all  the  learning,  the  genius,  and  the 
arts  of  the  time.  By  killing  off  all  men  of  ability  who 
would  not  submit,  the  Church  was  able  to  cover  its  walls 
with  admirable  pictures  of  the  torments  awaiting  all  who 
did  not  obey  it,  and  the  bliss  of  all  who  did.  It  had 
skilled  orators  who  could  artfully  defame  all  other  beliefs 
than  its  own,  and  scribes  able  to  bring  out  of  the  Bible 
just  what  the  Church  desired.     The  masses  were  thus 


72  CHRIST1ANIT\. 


fettered  not  only  outwardly  but  inwardly  ;  each  was  trained 
from  the  cradle  to  believe  that  the  same  hand  which  Pro- 
vidence had  empowered  to  bind  him  or  her  on  earth 
could  bind  them  also  beyond  the  grave  to  all  eternity. 

5.  The  Prestige  of  Christ.  While  Christ  was  on  earth 
the  common  people  heard  him  gladly.  He  had  taken 
their  side  against  an  oppressive  priesthood  ;  he  had  taken 
his  lot  with  the  poor  and  the  outcast ;  he  had  appealed  to 
what  was  deepest  and  best  in  every  man ;  he  had  treated 
v.-omen  with  respect  and  even  the  sinful  with  affection. 
He  had  taught  the  divine  love  to  those  who  had  heard 
only  of  an  angry  and  jealous  Jehovah.  He  had  uttered 
many  beautiful  discourses  and  parables,  bringing  the 
highest  truths  within  realisation  of  the  lowly,  whereas 
previously  they  had  been  speculations  confined  to 
philosophers.  He  had  been  transmitted  from  generation 
to  generation  as  an  ideal  type,  in  ^^•hom  were  embodied 
the  wisdom,  gentleness,  and  peace  for  which  all  hearts 
longed. 

Christianity  added  to  this  much  that  was  calculated  to 
influence  the  people  powerfully.  It  made  a  new  Christ. 
It  represented  him  as  a  deity  who,  moved  by  compassion 
for  the  poor  who  were  all  under  sentence  of  everlasting 
tortures,  laid  aside  the  splendour  of  his  celestial  abode, 
descended  to  the  earth  ;  assumed  the  form  of  an  humble 
working  man,  a  carpenter ;  became  the  very  poorest 
of  the  poor,  iiaving  not  where  to  lay  his  head  ;  suffered  the 
most  ignominious  death,  voluntarily ; — all  this  for  the 
sake  of  mankind,  and  in  order  to  save  them  from  eternal 
anguish.    To  this  end,   they  alleged,  he   had  founded  a 


ITS  DA  Y.  73 

Church  to  represent  him,  and  any  disobedience  to  that 
Church  was  base  ingratitude  to  a  Saviour  who  had  un- 
dergone so  much  for  human  advantage. 

Fictitious  as  this  representation  was  in  every  par- 
ticular, it  was  very  effective.  In  the  first  place  it  made  the 
masses  more  contented  with  their  poverty.  It  was  a  con- 
secration of  pauperism  that  the  best  man  ever  born  was 
the  poorest,  ^'arious  sentences  of  his  also  could  be 
quoted  levelled  against  riches.  It  was  very  important 
o  the  Church  that  the  people  should  be  willing  to 
part  easily  with  the  fruit  of  their  toil,  and  that  they 
should  be  satisfied  with  the  least  part  for  themselves. 
For  the  Church  itself  must  be  rich  :  its  treasures  belonged 
to  the  king  of  heaven. 

Another  thing  fostered  by  the  pathetic  pictures  of 
Christ's  poverty  and  low  position,  and  also  by  his  patient 
submission  under  suffering,  was  a  kind  of  abject  and 
spiritless  character  among  the  people.  They  were 
thoroughly  tamed.  They  thought  of  themselves  as  worms, 
and  any  idea  of  having  rights  or  trying  to  obtain  them 
could  never  arise,  so  long  as  the  meek,  self-sacrificing, 
unresisting,  peasant  of  Nazareth  was  pictured  on  every 
('hurch  wall  and  in  every  sermon  as  the  type  of  what  God 
demanded  every  human  being  should  aspire  to  be. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  thousand  years  of 
Christian  sway  implied  innumerable  populations  bound 
hand  and  foot,  mind  and  body ;  that  its  long  day  of 
l)Ower  was  a  long  night  to  the  mind  and  heart  of  Europe. 
But  there  were  holy  stars  watching  through  this  long 
night.  Christianity  could   not   entirely  ([ucnch  the  pure 


74  CHRISTIANITY. 


flame  of  Christ's  heart,  and  still  less  could  it  arrest  that 
steady  evolution  of  humanity  and  religion  which  is  the 
unwearied  eternal  providence. 

III. 

In  judging  the  tree  by  its  fruits  I  must  affirm  my 
conviction  that  the  fruits  of  Christianity,  though  not 
altogether  evil,  were  preponderantly  evil. 

The  chief  root  of  its  evil  was  that  it  taught  mankind 
that  their  supreme  duty  is  to  believe  certain  propositions  ; 
and  that  the  very  worst  sin  man  or  woman  can  commit 
is  to  disbelieve  those  propositions.  The  motto  of 
Christianity  was :  "  The  Church  has  a  remedy  for 
every  sin  except  heresy."  Higher  than  morality,  con- 
duct, or  character,  was  set  this  unquestioning  submission 
of  the  mind  to  creeds.  Now,  it  may  be  said  that  a 
man's  belief  determines  his  conduct  and  character.  But 
that  is  not  true.  Some  philologists  say  that  the  word 
helieve  is  one  form  of  an  old  word  meaning  to  belovc  ;  but, 
if  so,  "belief"  and  "belove  "  long  ago  parted  company, 
and,  at  any  rate,  the  kind  of  belief  which  the  Church 
has  all  along  demanded  has  been  an  assent  apart  from 
])erformance.  If  we  examine  the  creeds  for  which  it 
demanded  belief  we  find  that  they  have  little  or  nothing 
to  do  with  a  man's  character.  The  Apostles'  creed  has 
no  word  about  duty.  The  Athanasian  creed  opens  by 
saying,  "Whoever  will  be  saved,  he/ore  all  things,  it  is 
necessary  that  he  hold  the  Catholic  faith,"  and  it  goes  on 
to  recite  the  Catholic   faith,— namely,  the  Trinity,  the 


ITS  DAY.  75 

deity  of  Christ,  and  his  coming  to  judge  the  quick  and 
the  dead.  It  anathematises  those  who  confound  the 
persons  or  divide  the  substance  of  the  Trinity.  Out 
of  about  700  words  in  it  one  sentence  has  a  vague 
reference  to  conduct,  in  that  it  says  that  they  who  have 
done  good  shall  go  to  everlasting  life,  and  they  who 
have  done  evil  to  everlasting  fire  ;  but  the  force  of  even 
this  one  sentence  is  broken  by  the  definition  of  belief 
in  the  mysteries  of  heaven  as  necessary  for  salvation 
"  before  all  things."  The  Nicene  Creed  does  not  even 
mention  good  and  evil  deeds ;  it  anathematises  only  those 
who  deny  the  eternal  deity  of  Christ.  But  a  man  cannot 
live  the  Trinity.  He  cannot  reduce  the  eternal  procession 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  a  way  of  loving  his  neighbour  as 
himself.  I  once  heard  of  a  venerable  lady  who  said 
Total  Depravity  was  a  very  good  doctrine  if  it  was  only 
lived  up  to  ;  but  even  she,  I  fancy,  would  find  difficulty  in 
living  up  to  the  uncreate  co-eternal  subsistence  of  the 
Three  Persons.  The  Nicene  creed  declares  its  objects 
of  worship  incomprehensible.  The  Church  declares  its 
doctrines  and  sacraments  mysteries.  Belief  in  them 
therefore  cannot  be  an  intelligent  belief:  it  can  only 
amount  to  assent,  or  an  admission  that  a  thing  is  true 
without  any  real  grounds  for  believing  it  true.  That  kind 
of  assent,  without  knowledge  of  the  thing  assented  to, 
must  be  either  superstition  or  hypocrisy.  The  result  of 
this  kind  of  teaching  is  that  the  name  of  Jesus  became 
the  label  of  Jesuitism,  and  that  another  name  for  false- 
hood;  that  intellectual  veracity  was  denounced  as  a  crime 


76  CHRISTIANITY. 


and  scientific  men  compelled  to  renounce  on  their  knees 
their  actual  knowledge;  and  that  by  such  means  as 
these  reason  was  dishonoured,  research  discouraged, 
dishonesty  fostered,  and  both  the  moral  and  intellectual 
progress  of  mankind  seriously  retarded. 

A  cognate  evil  was  that  Christianity  was  from  the  first 
based  on  the  notion  that  tlie  great  end  of  man  was  to 
give  pleasure  and  benefit  to  God.  Its  theory  was  that 
God  was  profoundly  concerned  to  have  certain  creeds 
believed  and  rites  performed,  and  would  be  disturbed  and 
enraged  if  not  so  satisfied.  It  was  discovered  long  ago, 
and  became  a  political  maxim,  that  the  object  of  all  govern- 
ment is  benefit  of  the  governed;  but  the  Church  persisted 
in  holding  the  good  of  man  subordinate  to  the  pleasure  of 
God.  And  as  the  Church  identified  itself  with  God  it 
made  its  system  not  a  mieans  but  an  end.  The  result 
of  this  error  was  that  man  was  freely  sacrificed,  holocausts 
of  men  burned  and  massacred.  Christianity  carried  fire 
and  sword  among  Jewish  and  Mussulman  races  to  such 
an  extent  that  it  has  become  a  symbol  of  violence  and 
discord,  under  which  no  religious  unity  can  ever  be 
secured.  It  has  successively  alienated  Science  and 
Humanity. 

Under  these  tremendous  doctrines  and  mysteries,  raised 
up  as  the  chief  thing,  such  things  as  pertained  to  every 
day  life  shrank  to  insignificance.  The  Methodist  still 
sings, 

0  tell  me  no  more 

Of  this  world's  vain  show. 


ITS  DAY.  77 

IV. 

But  let  us  consider,  on  the  other  hand,  what  advantages 
it  secured. 

First  of  all,  notwithstanding  its  horrible  doctrine  of 
human  depravity,  it  gave  man  some  conception  of  the 
grandeur  of  his  own  nature.  It  taught  the  people  to 
believe  in  their  own  immortality.  The  humblest  mother, 
as  she  looked  upon  the  babe  in  her  arms,  saw  in  it  a 
soul  whose  existence  would  run  parallel  to  the  existence 
of  God.  No  doubt  that  great  light  cast  many  shadows. 
There  was  joined  to  it  those  pictures  of  Heaven  and  Hell 
which  powerfully  stimulated  selfishness  and  fear.  It  also, 
to  a  large  extent,  projected  beyond  the  grave  devotion 
and  enthusiasm  of  which  this  world  ought  not  to  have 
been  defrauded.  But  at  that  time  there  was  need  that 
mankind  should  attain  a  profounder  sense  of  the  far- 
reaching  issues  of  human  life  and  the  eternal  dignity  of 
human  nature,  and  such  was  one  effect  of  that  doctrine. 

In  the  next  place  it  conferred  some  dignity  on  labour, 
and  on  the  toiling  class.  The  Church  acknowledged  a 
carpenter  for  its  founder  and  a  fisherman  for  its  first 
pope.  It  preached  a  kingdom  to  which  the  humblest  were 
to  be  admitted  along  with  the  greatest.  The  Church  did 
not  practice  as  it  i)reachcd  :  it  allied  itself  with  princes 
and  nobles  to  crush  the  n\asses  into  serfs  :  but  it  could 
never  quite  undo  its  faith  by  its  faithlessness,  and  it 
advanced  the  idea  of  human  equality. 

Along  with  the  many  evils  it  inflicted  on  woman,  evils 
from  which  it  must  be  long  before  we  can  recover,  it  did, 


78  CHRISTIANITY. 


as  I  think,  awaken  some  reverence  for  that  sex.  I  do  not 
mean  that  it  surpassed  other  rehgions  in  this  :  all  religions 
indeed  have  had  their  Madonnas  and  Holy  Families  ;  but 
the  ideal  of  womanhood  consecrated  by  Christianity  in 
Mary  was  purer  and  more  tender  than  that  previously 
prevailing  even  in  Europe.  I  am  indeed  putting  the  matter 
in  its  very  best  light.  It  can  never  be  forgotten  that 
Christianity  took  away  from  Woman,  both  in  Rome  and 
in  Germany,  the  legal  and  political  rights  which  have 
never  since  been  restored  to  her.  Yet  with  all  this,  there 
is  little  doubt  that  the  exaltation  of  the  Madonna  miti- 
gated the  stern  sway  of  such  gods  as  Jehovah,  Jupiter,  and 
Odin ;  that  it  preserved  the  beauty  and  grace  of  the 
goddesses,  while  adding  graciousness,  humility,  and  the 
love  that  endures ;  and  that  it  taught  rude  and  warlike 
nations  that  it  was  noble,  not  weak,  to  be  loyal  to  the 
sentiment  and  moral  genius  of  woman. 

These  appear  to  me  the  only  religious  and  moral  bene- 
fits by  which  we  can  offset  the  evils  wrought  by  Christianity. 
With  regard  to  other  kinds  of  benefit  it  has,  I  know,  been 
the  fashion  to  credit  that  system  with  the  learning — such 
as  it  was — preserved  and  acquired  during  the  middle  ages. 
But  in  truth  the  evolution  of  the  world  simply  went  on 
beneath  and  through  the  terrible  oppression  which  it 
brought  upon  the  human  mind  ;  it  went  on  despite  the 
system,  not  because  of  it.  Christianity  destroyed  no 
popular  superstitious.  It  did  not  deny  the  existence  of 
pagan  deities,  but  merely  degraded  them  into  devils,  and 
left  them  to  haunt  the  world  even  now  as  goblins  and 
imps.     What  pleasant  fables  were  told  of  the  gods  were 


ITS  DA  y. 


79 


transferred  to  its  own  saints  and  angels.  This  has  proved 
indeed  an  incidental  advantage  to  Comparative  Mythology, 
which  can  now  gather  up  the  myths  of  European  pagan- 
ism from  the  lives  and  legends  of  the  saints ;  but  the 
Church  would  hardly  accept  the  thanks  of  Science  for 
that,  if  offered.  In  its  Day  of  Supremacy  no  great  man 
or  cause  arose  against  which  the  Church  did  not  fight. 
It  burnt  the  best  books  in  the  street,  and  the  best  men 
at  the  stake.  It  encouraged  Art,  and  pictorial  Art  it 
may  almost  claim  to  have  created.  Because  the  picture 
had  to  be  to  the  people  what  the  Bible  and  all  other  books 
are  to  us  to-day,  artists  arose  who  painted  the  Bible,  and 
the  legends  which  made  the  chief  literature,  with  every 
circumstance  of  beauty  and  impressivcness.  Yet  though 
the  Church  so  inspired  it  also  prevertcd  Art.  Its  "reat 
painters  have  left  us  endless  biblical  scenes,  holy  virgins, 
and  saints,  but  failed  to  transmit  to  us,  with  any  fulness, 
the  life  and  scenery  of  their  own  times.  Christianity  built 
grand  cathedrals,  but  beggared  the  homes  of  the  people 
for  them.  The  most  we  can  say  for  it  is  that  it  was  the 
best  thing  attainable  in  its  time ;  that  it  was  a  necessary 
phase  or  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  world  ;  and  amid 
all  its  immediate  evils  cherished  some  vital  germs  whose 
growth  involved  its  own  dissolution. 


IV. 


ITS    DECLINE. 


ITS    DECLINE. 
I. 


HERE  are  excellent  persons  who  cannot  yet  hear 
such  a  phrase  as  "  the  decline  of  Christianity  " 
without  feeling  scandalised.  They  wish  it  to 
be  considered  that  it  is  a  false,  spurious  Christianity 
which  is  disappearing,  or  has  disappeared,  but  that  there 
is  a  true  Christianity  which  is  advancing  to  take  its  place. 
Such  iiiay  be  assured  that  I  do  not  believe  the  religion, 
virtues,  and  ideas  which  they  label  Christian  are  declin- 
ing ;  in  a  further  chapter  are  presented  my  reasons  for 
thinking  that  sucli  religion,  virtues  and  ideas  can  not  be 
justly  described  as  Christianity  in  any  sense  ;  at  present 
I  speak  only  of  Christianity  as  it  is  interpreted  hy 
the  vast  majority  of  its  adherents.  And  this,  I  maintain, 
has  already  declined.  Its  name  preserves  popularity,  Init 
only  because  the  real  substance  of  its  power — belief  in 
its  dogmas  and  sanctions — has  passed  away,  and  it  has 
become  by  verbal  fiction  associated  with  the  enlightened 
sentiment  of  the  modern  age. 

By   consensus   of  all  great    Christian   sects,  whether 
Roman,  Eastern,  or  Protestant,  the  fundamental  doctrines 


84  CHRISTIANITY. 


of  Christianity  are — i,  the  Fall  of  Man  ;  the  corruption 
of  his  nature,  whereby  every  person  has  incurred  the 
penalty  of  eternal  anguish  ;  2,  the  Vicarious  Atonement 
of  Christ ;  who  by  his  sufferings  and  death  satisfied  the 
Divine  Law,  and  opened  a  way  of  escape  from  the 
penalty  and  anguish  to  all  who  by  faith  accept  the  benefit 
of  his  sacrifice ;  3,  the  deity  of  Christ ;  which  alone 
could  have  made  his  atonement  satisfactory  in  lieu  of  the 
whole  human  race ;  4,  the  publication  of  this  danger, 
and  the  plan  of  redemption,  in  an  inspired  revelation, 
authenticated  by  miracles;  5,  the  eternal  blessedness  of 
all  who  accept  and  believe  this  plan  or  scheme  of  salva- 
tion, and  the  everlasting  torment  of  those  who  reject  and 
disbelieve  the  same. 

The  various  Christian  sects  may  severally  demand 
more  than  this,  but,  with  unimportant  and  largely  out- 
voted exceptions,  they  all  hold  these  dogmas  as  essential 
to  Christianity,  And  these  dogmas,  I  affirm,  have  had 
their  day  and  declined  ;  and  I  affirm  that  only  because 
I  believe  it  can  be  proved. 

Now,  to  what  tribunal  are  we  to  look  for  the  verdict 
upon  any  system  of  belief  ?  So  far  as  it  is  a  philosophy 
we  must  look  to  the  philosophers  ;  so  for  as  it  is  a 
cosmogony  we  must  look  to  men  of  science  ;  so  far  as 
it  is  a  system  of  morality  we  must  look  to  the  daily 
life  of  mankind.  If  we  seek  to  know  whether  the  Gnostic 
philosophy  has  passed  away  we  look  among  contemporary 
philosophers  to  find  if  it  is  held  by  any  school  or  thinker; 
if  we  inquire  whether  the  Ptolemaic  cosmogony  survives, 
or  the  Mosaic,  we  look  to  see  if  any  astronomer  believes 


ITS  DECLINE.  85 

it ;  and  if  we  find  none  of  those  who  best  understand  the 
subject  beUeving  those  systems,  we  recognise  them  as 
having  decHned,  even  though  thousands  of  the  unlearned 
should  be  shown  holding  notions  traceable  to  them.  We 
may  appeal  to  a  popular  jury  when  the  question  arises, 
not  whether  such  systems  are  true,  but  whether  they  are 
popularly  believed. 

But  further,  we  must  be  certain  that  our  tribunal  is 

not  only  competent,  but  impartial.     A  judge  cannot  sit 

in  his  own  case.     Thus,  in  the  case  of  Christianity,  there 

are  many  learned  men  who  advocate  it ;  but  because  they 

are  advocates— because  they  wear  the  uniform  and  badge 

of  retained   and  feed  religious   attorneys— we  can  not 

agree   that   they  shall  be  judges.     The  clergy  and  the 

ministry  as  a  body  must  be  ruled  out ;  they  have  too 

much  at  stake.     Why,  what  would  become  of  them,  their 

churclies  and  chapels,  their  livings,  their  prospects,  and 

their  credit,  if  it  should  suddenly  be  made  known  to  all 

men  that  all  they  have  been  preaching  is  a  consistent 

mass  of  errors?     The  majority  of  them  are,  no  doubt, 

sincere  :  but  self-interest,  the  long  habit  of  looking  mainly 

at  one  side,  and  steady  training  in  opposition  to  the  other 

side,   are   influences  for   casuistry  too   powerful   to   be 

matched  by  the  best  intentions.     And  if  in  the  ranks  of 

those  who  oppose  Christianity  it  can  be  shown  that  they, 

too,  have  some  interest  that  may  prejudice  them,  let  their 

names  also  be  struck  off.     It  would,  indeed,  be  difficult 

to  prove  that  any  man  can  have  as  much  temporal  mterest 

in  opposing  a  wealthy  and  powerful  conventionality  as  in 

supporting  it ;  but,  nevertheless,  in  order  that  our  verdict 


86  CHRISTIANITY. 


may  be  unquestionable,  we  must  have  no  special  pleaders, 
no  faintest  interest  that  can  sway  the  exact  balances  of 
Reason. 

II. 

Now,  how  many  metaphysicians  believe  in  the  total 
depravity  of  human  nature  ?  How  many  philosophers, 
how  many  anthropologists  believe  in  the  utter  corrup- 
tion of  the  mind  and  heart  of  man?  How  many  of 
such  believe  that  this  universal  moral  \illainy  could  be 
inherited,  to  say  nothing  of  its  originating  in  the  eating 
of  an  apple  thousands  of  years  ago  ?  How  many  ?  Not 
one.  I  do  not  speak  of  the  past,  but  of  the  present ; 
it  is  my  contention  that,  though  this  system  may  once 
have  commanded  the  assent  of  thinkers,  it  is  now  dead 
to  them.  And  I  may  equally  demand  the  page  written 
by  any  living  Avriter  on  ethical,  or  legal,  or  religious 
science,  or  philosophy,  in  which  is  defended  the  idea 
that  the  human  race  is  pardoned  on  condition  of  the 
physical  sacrifice  of  an  innocent  being.  And  where  is 
the  author  of  our  time  who  defends  the  wild  notion  of 
an  eternal  punishment — a  punishment  without  end,  and 
consequently  without  purpose — inflicted  on  millions  for 
a  sin  they  did  not  commit,  and  who  have  not  even  de- 
termined their  own  existence  ?  These  unnatural  dogmas, 
if  proved  at  all,  must  be  proved  by  unnatural  events. 
Such  events  arc,  of  course,  claimed ;  but  what  is  the 
verdict  of  historical  criticism  upon  their  evidences  ?  What 
is  the  verdict  of  science  upon  their  character  ?  They 
have  fallen  beneath  criticism.  They  are  utterly  discarded 


ITS  DECLINE.  87 


by  those  most  competent  to  deal  with  questions  involving 
the  uniformity  of  nature. 

Thus  on  every  fundamental  point,  Christianity,  as  a 
creed  or  philosophy,  is  discarded  by  the  Grand  Jury 
of  thought  and  knowledge  in  our  time.  Among  those 
whose  competency  and  whose  disinterestedness  we  know 
Christianity  is  without  a  distinguished  defender.  There 
are  indeed  eminent  men  who  call  themselves  Christians, 
and  who  write  eulogies  of  Christianity  without  dealing 
with  its  substance.  Mr.  Gladstone,  for  instance,  praises 
Christianity ;  but  we  do  not  find  him  ever  arguing  the 
truth  of  its  dogmas.  He  never  tells  us  his  opinions  on 
human  depravity,  vicarious  atonement,  and  eternal  hell- 
fire.  But  he  does  let  us  know  what  he  thinks  of  the 
anathemas  uttered  by  both  Bible  and  creed  on  all  who 
reject  those  dogmas  :  he  has  recently  selected  the  leaders 
of  heresy  and  theism  for  honourable  mention  as  exception- 
ally good  men.  Such  is  the  ablest  living  champion  of  the 
Church.  On  Sunday  he  repeats  that  the  eminent  heretics 
shall,  without  doubt,  perish  everlastingly :  on  Monday  he 
^vrites  to  the  "  Contemporary  Review "  that  they  are 
excellent  and  spiritual  men.  Christianity  says  no  man 
can  be  saved  but  by  faith  in  the  atoning  blood  of  Christ. 
Mr.  Martineau  says  he  had  rather  be  lost  than  saved  in 
that  way.  Mr.  Gladstone  holds  up  Martineau  as  one  of  the 
most  religious — Christian  ! — teachers  of  our  time.  That 
is  what  his  Christianity  amounts  to.  But  where  is  any 
better  defence  those  dogmas  are  receiving  at  present  in 
any  part  of  the  world  ? 


S8  CHRISTIANITY. 


III. 

When  we  turn  to  consider  Christianity  as  a  moral 
system,  we  may  be  content  to  accept  the  verdict  of  the 
great  masses  of  the  people.  We  cannot  indeed  accept 
the  popular  opinion  as  to  the  philological  accuracy  with 
which  this  or  that  virtue  is  called  "Christian;"  but  we 
may  look  to  them  to  declare,  not  by  words,  but  by  actions, 
whether  the  moral  demands,  the  moral  standard,  the 
maxims  and  sanctions  of  Christianity  are  such  as  are  good 
to  restrain  evil,  promote  good,  and  to  command  life.  In 
that  remarkable  little  book  entitled  "  Christianity  a 
Refined  Heathenism" — written,  it  is  said,  by  the  Rev.  Mr. 
PuUeyn,  who  was  a  minor  Canon  of  Salisbury  Cathedral, 
but  was  sent  off  on  an  expedition  to  the  North  Pole, 
to  keep  him,  I  suppose,  from  writing  uncomfortable  books 
— a  Hindoo  offers  to  become  a  convert  to  Christianity 
l)rovided  a  clergyman  can  find  a  single  man  really  living 
the  life  of  Christ.  The  clergyman  seeks  vainly  for  a  long 
time,  but  finally  finds  the  man,  as  he  thinks,  in  a  poor 
curate  who  passes  his  time  in  praying  before  the  altar  of 
a  small  church,  and  who  catches  a  disease,  of  which  he 
dies,  in  visiting  the  sick  around  him.  But  even  he  did  not 
follow  Christ,  for  Christ  resisted  the  established  Church 
and  priesthood  of  his  time,  and  this  poor  curate  sup- 
ported both.  In  fact,  the  Hindoo  made  a  perfectly  safe 
offer.  There  is  not  a  sane  man  or  woman  in  England  who 
fulfils  the  duties  prescribed  in  the  New  Testament.  Do 
these  people  around  u^  turn  the  other  cheek  when  one 
is  smitten  ?     Do  they  refuse  to  go  to  law  against  each 


ITS  DECLINE.  S9 


Other  ?  Do  they  give  the  thief  another  garment  when  he 
has  stolen  one?  Do  they  decHne  to  resist  evil,  and  let 
scoundrels  have  it  all  their  own  way  ?  Do  they  never  ask 
return  of  him  who  has  borrowed  of  them?  Do  they 
love  their  neighbours  as  themselves,  and  sell  all  they 
have  to  give  it  to  the  poor  ?  Do  they  have  all  things 
in  common  ?  Do  they  believe  their  friends  and  children 
are  totally  depraved,  and  treat  them  as  such  ?  These  in- 
structions, we  are  told,  must  be  taken  in  their  spirit,  not 
literally  :  so  a  Socinian  may  justly  say,  but  who,  believing 
them  the  ■words  of  a  god,  can  claim  that  they  require 
modification  by  man  ?  But  do  the  people — do  Christians 
— obey  even  their  spirit  ?  Is  it  in  Christ's  spirit  when  if 
a  man  has  taken  our  cloak  we  give  him  the  cat  ?  But 
does  this  people,  or  any  people,  credit  Christ's  plain 
affirmations  about  a  future  life?  Do  they  lay  up  no 
treasures  on  earth,  but  only  in  heaven  ?  Do  they  live 
among  their  neighbours  as  if  they  believed  that  the 
millions  around  them  were  destined  to  be  tortured  in 
everlasting  fires  ?  Do  these  smiling  crowds  show  the 
horror,  the  anguish,  which  such  belief  would  inevitably 
bring  every  moment  to  a  heart  of  ordinary  humanity  ? 
If  these  things  be  right,  then  is  there  still  none  that  doeth 
good — no  not  one  ! 

It  matters  not  what  compliments  to  Christianity  may 
be  upon  the  lips  of  the  people  if  belief  of  it  is  not  in  their 
hearts,  and  if  their  daily  lives  and  actions  prove  that  its 
morality  is  unreal  to  them  and  impracticable  ;  and  tliat 
not  because  it  is  too  high  for  them,  but  too  low, — the 
survival  of  ascetic  and  fanatical  systems,  which,  as  com- 


go  CHRISTIANITY. 


bined,  could  never  have  been  practiced  in  any  age,  and 
were  certainly  not  practiced  by  Christ. 

John  Robert  Downes  is  now  (1876)  in  a  London 
prison  for  really  believing  the  Bible.  In  that  book  he 
read  :  "  Is  any  sick  among  you  ?  let  him  call  for  the 
elders  of  the  church ;  and  let  them  pray  over  him, 
anointing  him  with  oil  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  ;  and  the 
prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the  sick  and  the  Lord  shall 
raise  him  up."  Here  could  be  no  question  of  interpreta- 
tion :  St.  James'  prescription  is  perfectly  plain.  It  was 
placed  in  the  hands  of  of  Do\vnes  by  Act  of  Parliament, 
as  the  infallible  Word  of  God.  The  poor  man  accepted 
it  in  good  faith,  followed  it  devoutly  where  his  Httle 
daughter  lay  ill :  the  child  died.  Downes  is  punished 
for  not  having  followed  the  course  of  Asa  and  called  in 
a  physician,  even  though  the  Bible  says  Asa  died  because 
he  took  to  the  physicians  instead  of  to  the  Lord.  Simple 
minded  Downes !  you  are  in  prison,  but  you  have  laid  bare 
the  hypocrisy  of  Christendom  ! 

Thus,  whether  we  listen  to  the  conclusions  of  Science, 
Philosophy  and  Literature  on  the  philosophy  and  the 
authentication  of  Christianity,  or  whether  we  listen  to 
the  voice  of  the  people,  as  uttered  in  actions  that  speak 
louder  than  words,  we  receive  a  cumulative  verdict  that 
Christianity  has  a  name  to  live,  but  is  dead. 

IV. 

It  remains  for  us  to  inquire  why  Christianity  has 
declined. 


ITS  DECLINE.  91 


I.  Christianity  tried  to  crush  Reason,  and  to  arrest  the 
progress  of  Science.  When  it  arose  there  were  flourishing 
Schools  of  Science  in  Egypt  and  in  Greece.  There  was  a 
very  important  School  of  Jewish  philosophers  in  Alex- 
andria. The  extent  to  which  Professor  Tyndall  finds  the 
theoretical  Science  of  to-day  germinating  in  the  works  of 
Lucretius,  the  high  rank  still  accorded  to  Aristotle,  to 
Plato,  to  Pliny,  and  others,  show  that  important  investi- 
gations into  the  nature  of  things  were  going  on  before 
the  Church  arose.  Seneca  writes  of  magnifying  by  glass, 
of  refraction,  and  prismatic  colours,  the  regular  course  of 
comets,  and  central  heat  of  the  earth,  in  a  way  that 
harmonises  to  a  large  extent  with  modern  Science. 
Pliny  \\Tites  similarly  about  electricity,  and  he  says  that 
Tullus  was  killed  v/hile  trying  to  bring  down  lightning 
out  of  a  cloud, — an  experiment  in  which  Numa  seems  to 
have  anticipated  Franklin  by  some  2,500  years !  Lucan, 
writing  before  Christ,  mentions  similar  experiments.  The 
Phoenicians  had  advanced  Chemistry,  many  nations 
metallurgy,  and  our  recent  discovery  of  toughened  glass 
is  the  recovery  of  an  art  mentioned  by  Pliny. 

Against  all  this  research  Christianity  set  itself.  Because 
the  schools  of  Philosophy  were  not  interested  in  the  new 
Jewish  movement,  even  Paul  denounced  Science.  He 
talks  about  the  carnal  mind.  He  says  that  his  work  is  to 
"  cast  down  reasonings "  and  bring  "  every  thought 
captive  into  the  obedience  of  Christ."  (2  Cor.  x.  5.) 
We  find  presently  TertuUian  boasting  that  the  humblest 
Christian  mechanic  knew  more  than  all  the  sages  of 
Greece  ;  and  in  his  picture   of  the  Day  of  J  udgment, 


92  CHRISTIANITY. 


that  chief  sponsor  of  Christianity  exclaims  that  he  will 
admire,  laugh,  exult,  when  he  sees  "  So  many  sage 
philosophers  blushing  in  red  hot  flames  with  their  deluded 
scholars;  so  many  celebrated  poets  trembling  before  the 
tribunal  not  of  Minos,  but  of  Christ !" 

Christianity  having  thus  taken  the  side  of  ignorance 
against  learning,  fought  hard  for  its  dark  fortress  ;  but  it 
could  not  nail  the  climbing  stars ;  it  succeeded  only  in 
making  the  ascent  of  knowledge  counterpart  of  its  own 
decline.  The  best  minds  grew  restless.  The  Inquisition 
of  Toulouse  came  into  existence  in  1229  to  prevent 
inquiry  :  it  ordered  all  heretics  to  be  buried  alive.  The 
utmost  fury  of  the  Church  was  poured  out  on  the  Jews, 
because  they  maintained  with  logic  and  learning  their 
simple  monotheism  against  the  Church.  They  were 
tortured  and  burnt  in  vast  numbers.  Some  monks  in  the 
12th  century  pretended  to  have  found  on  the  sepulchre 
of  Jesus  a  letter  from  heaven  demanding  the  immediate 
conversion  of  the  Jews,  and  as  they  would  not  be  con- 
verted the  Rhine  ran  red  with  their  blood.  In  Spain 
the  Inquisition  put  to  death  over  300,000  heretics.  All 
of  which  implies  that  though  the  Church  offered  up  some 
millions  of  thinkers  to  its  dark  deity  Ignorance, — its  sole 
protecting  providence, — yet  with  all  that  it  had  to  wane. 
There  appeared  finally  a  man  who  invented  type — the 
priests  said  he  did  it  in  league  with  the  devil — and  from 
that  time  the  reign  of  darkness  and  terror  began  to 
decline. 

2.  Christianity  has  declined  because  the  piety  it  tried 
to  cultivate   was    inharmonious   with  refined   and   high 


ITS  DECLINE. 


93 


sentiment.  Its  God,  demanding  blood  for  his  satisfaction, 
its  hell,  its  devils,  were  all  coarse  and  revolting.  It  was 
hard  to  worship  such  a  deity.  The  Church  in  its  ferocity 
imitated  its  God  very  closely.  The  result  was  that  really 
refined  and  spiritual  minds  began  to  form  themselves  into 
little  fraternities  and  orders,  in  which  they  might  con- 
template purer  ideals,  with  something  like  masonic 
secresy.  A  vast  deal  of  quiet  heresy  went  on  in  the 
Church,  without  any  doctrinal  promulgation,  of  that  kind 
which  finally  disclosed  itself  in  Tauler,  Madame  Guion, 
Fenelon,  and  others.  A  long  histor)-,  not  likely  to  be 
written,  preceded  those  quietists  and  mystics.  Carlyle 
has  derived  from  old  chronicles  this  significant  incident  of 
550  years  ago.  In  the  year  1322  the  Markgraf  P>iedrich 
of  Misnia,  having  returned  from  his  Avars,  and  while  his 
country  was  reviving  under  peace,  was  entertained  at 
Eisenach  by  a  dramatic  representation  of  the  "  Ten 
Virgins."  It  was  performed  by  the  clerg-y  and  their 
scholars.  '•'  But,"  says  the  chronicle,  "  when  it  came 
to  pass  that  the  AVise  Virgins  would  give  the  foolish  no 
oil,  and  these  latter  were  shut  out  from  the  bridegroom, 
they  began  to  weep  bitterly,  and  called  on  the  saints  to 
intercede  for  them  ;  who,  however,  even  with  jMary  at 
their  head,  could  effect  nothing  from  God ;  but  the 
Foolish  Virgins  were  all  sentenced  to  damnation.  "Which 
things  the  Landgraf  seeing  and  hearing,  he  fell  into  a 
doubt,  and  was  very  angry  ;  and  said  '  AVhat  then  is  the 
Christian  Faith,  if  God  will  not  take  pity  on  us,  for  inter- 
cession of  Mary  and  all  the  Saints  ? '  In  tliis  anger  he 
continued  five  days ;  and  the  learned  men  could  hardly 


94  CHRISTIANITY. 


enlighten  him  to  understand  the  Gospel.  Thereupon 
he  was  struck  with  apoplexy,  and  became  speechless 
and  powerless  :  in  which  said  state  he  continued  bedrid 
two  years  and  seven  months,  and  so  died,  being  then 
fifty-five."  This  stern  mediaeval  warrior,  dying  broken- 
hearted at  his  first  realization  of  the  divine  cruelty,  was 
forerunner  of  the  old  mystics  from  Tauler  and  Thomas- 
a-Kempis  who  came  soon  after  him,  to  Behmen  and 
Swedenborg,  ail  fleeing  from  the  hard  barbarous  theology 
as  from  a  City  of  Destruction,  and  taking  refuge  in  the 
sweet  illusion  that  every  text  and  creed  meant  something 
precisely  different  from  what  it  said. .  Madame  Guion  had 
her  vision  of  one  whom  she  met  bearing  a  pitcher  and 
a  furnace,  wherewith  she  would  quench  the  flames  of  hell, 
and  burn  up  Paradise,  in  order  that  God  might  be  loved 
without  fear  or  hope  of  reward.  Fenelon  was  caught 
up  with  the  same  longing  for  a  God  of  Love  as  his 
friend  (Madame  Guion),  and  for  this  he  was  with  her 
persecuted  by  Bossuet  and  others.  The  Pope  (Innocent 
VIII.)  said,  "  Fenelon's  fault  is  too  great  love  of  God  ; 
his  enemies'  fault  is  too  little  love  of  their  neighbour." 
Fenelon  was  degraded  and  exiled  for  preaching  divine 
love,  without  making  enough  of  demoniac  terrors  ;  Tauler, 
h,  Kempis,  ZwoU,  Buhme,  all  who  aspired  to  a  sweet 
mystical  piety,  were  persecuted  by  the  Church,  though 
now  it  is  ready  to  claim  their  piety  and  genius  in  its  own 
credit. 

There  is  nothing  more  subtle,  more  all-pervading,  than 
the  influence  that  flows  forth  from  a  pure  exalted  human 
being;  and  when  that  influence  is  found  more  potent 


ITS  DECLINE.  95 


outside  of  a  church  than  inside  it,  and  when  a  system  is 
such  that  it  has  no  place  for  that  influence, — has  to  degrade 
its  living  in  the  name  of  its  dead  saints— knows  nothing 
better  to  do  with  a  Fenelon  than  banish  him,— why  it  is 
pretty  certain  that  the  candlestick  of  that  Church  is 
removed  out  of  its  place. 

3.  Another  main  cause  of  the  decline  of  Christianity  has 
been  the  antagonism  between  its  moral  system  and  the 
laws  and  needs  of  human  nature.  All  that  was  unique  in 
the  moral  code  of  Christianity  was  based  not  on  the  actual 
wants  of  man  but  the  fancied  needs  of  God.  Certain  old 
notions  inherited  from  a  distant  past  that  God  was  jealous 
of  human  pleasure  and  required  sacrifices  unrelated  to 
man's  moral  advantage,  had  become  embodied  in  the 
system.  Jesus  warned  those  around  to  go  and  learn 
the  meaning  of  the  saying  "  I  desire  not  sacrifice  but 
only  charity,"  but  they  never  did  learn  the  meaning  of  it ; 
the  vast  majority  do  not  know  the  meaning  of  it  yet ;  and 
so  the  Church  proceeded  for  ages  on  the  principle  that 
the  more  happiness  man  or  woman  gave  up  the  more  was 
God  pleased.  The  primitive  Church  was  as  hard,  dismal, 
unlovely  as  any  remote  Scotch  town  on  a  Sabbath. 
But  gradually,  in  the  course  of  centuries,  human  nature 
conquered  it. 

Thirteen  hundred  years  ago  a  handsome  young  man 
left  the  world  and  went  to  live  in  a  tomb.  That  was  his 
and  the  Church's  idea  of  being  Saint,  and  he  was 
canonised  as  St.  Benedict.  Tliere  in  his  tomb  he  had  a 
dream  of  a  maid  to  whom  he  had  been  betrothed,  and  in 
his  horror  at  such  a  sinful  dream  he  rolled  himself  in 


96  CHRISTIANITY. 


thorns  until  his  body  was  bleeding  at  every  pore.  The 
jungle  of  thorns  was  thenceforth  regarded  as  sacred,  they 
were  carefully  cultivated,  and  people  went  there  from  all 
parts  of  the  Catholic  world  to  acquire  sanctity  by  piercing 
themselves  with  thorns.  But  seven  hundred  years  later 
St.  Francis  d'Assisi,  he  who  used  to  preach  to  the  birds 
as  his  sisters,  went  to  visit  the  spot ;  he  saw  some 
monks  lacerating  themselves  amid  the  thorns  \  he  went 
away  and  got  some  roses  and  planted  them  in  front  of 
the  thorns.  The  monks  then  began  to  attend  to  the 
roses ;  nay,  gradually  they  left  the  thorns  to  wither, 
cultivated  the  others,  until  after  a  time  no  thorns 
remained  but  roses  only.  Just  seven  centuries  the  lesson 
took,  that  a  rose  is  as  sacred  as  a  thorn  !  The  story  is  a 
fair  type  of  how  human  nature  steadily  conquered  the 
dismal  asceticism  and  thornworship  of  the  Church.  The 
asceticism  lingered  only  in  nunneries  and  monasteries ; 
the  people  and  their  priests  together  mingled  in  dances 
and  festivals.  But  all  this  meant  the  decline  of  Christianity, 
which  in  its  essence  was  opposed  to  joy,  opposed  to 
marriage,  and  overshadowed  life  with  apprehensions  for 
the  present  and  terrors  of  the  future. 

Puritanism,  both  in  Germany  and  England,  attempted 
to  revive  the  old  asceticism,  but  they  are  going  the  same 
way.  Their  ugly  Sabbath  is  departing;  their  dismal 
temples  are  being  adorned;  their  rigid  exactions  of 
human  nature  are  being  relaxed  ;  but  all  of  these  features 
of  liberalism  are  contrary  to  Christianity.—  in  plain  dis- 
cord with  its  dogmas,  wh.ich  teach  horror  of  this  world 
as  a  thing  accursed,  horror  of  human  nature  as  corrupt. 


ITS  DECLINE.  97 


and  the   fearful  apprehension  of  fier}'  torments  awaiting 
us  all. 

V. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  many  causes  which  superinduced 
the  decline  of  Christianity.  Those  causes  mastered  the 
Church  as  it  existed  before  the  Reformation.  The  dis- 
covery of  printing,  and  the  speedy  diffusion  of  the  Bible, 
shattered  the  Church ;  but  each  of  the  many  sects  which 
started  up  under  the  Reformation  repeated  something  of 
the  same  kind,  as  it  were,  in  embryonic  phases.  An  effort 
was  made  to  cast  human  life  again  in  the  old  Syrian 
moulds  prescribed  by  the  Bible,  and  by  Christian  tradi- 
tions. The  whole  world  judaised.  But  it  has  been  with 
the  same  result.  Christianity  in  its  Protestant  forms  has 
tried  to  renew  some  things  that  the  Catholic  Church  has 
unlearned  by  long  and  costly  experience.  It  came  into 
sharp  collision  with  the  needs  of  everyday  life,  with  the 
pursuit  of  wealth,  with  the  enterprise  of  the  world.  It 
is  now  taught  to  a  Avorld  that  cannot  believe,  and  cannot 
practice  it.  The  reality  of  it  has  passed  away.  Its 
name  now  represents  only  the  effort  of  a  lucrative  insti- 
tution to  survive  into  and  through  a  civilization  built  up 
point  for  point  against  its  protest  and  its  errors.  That 
effort  may  continue  for  a  time,  but  it  is  hopeless. 

There  is  a  Scandinavian  fable  which  illustrates  the 
subtlety  of  those  forces  which  bring  death  to  a  thing 
leaving  it  for  a  little  the  form  and  semblance  of 
life.  Mimir,  the  craftsman,  was  challenged  by  another 
craftsman,    Amilias,    who   boasted    that  he   had   made 

G 


CHRISTIANITY. 


a  suit  of  armour  which  no  stroke  could  dint,  to 
equal  that  feat,  or  own  him  the  second  smith  then 
living.  Then  Mimir  forged  a  sword  so  fine  of  edge 
that  it  cut  a  thread  of  wool  floating  on  the  water. 
Dissatisfied  with  that,  Mimir  broke  the  blade  to  pieces, 
welded  in  red  hot  fire  for  three  days,  tempered  it  with 
milk,  and  brought  out  a  sword  that  severed  a  ball  of 
wool  floating  on  the  water.  But  still  the  edge  was  blunt 
to  Mimir  :  he  returned  to  his  smithy,  and  worked  in 
secret,  and  by  means  unknown  to  any  but  himself  he 
fashioned  the  sword  Mimung.  And  now  Amilias,  encased 
in  his  impenetrable  armour,  sat  down  in  presence  of 
assembled  thousands,  and  bade  Mimir  strike  him.  Mimi- 
struck  with  his  sword  ;  the  blow  was  noiseless  ;  after  it 
the  craftsman  who  had  been  struck  merely  remarked  that 
he  felt  strangely.  Whereon  iMimir  said,  "  Shake  thyself." 
Amilias  did  so,  and  he  fell  in  two  halves,  never  to  swing 
hammer  more.  This  may  be  originally  the  fable  of  a 
giant  iceberg,  smitten  by  a  sunbeam,  parting  asunder ; 
but  it  is  the  history  also  of  the  spiritual  sunbeam 
whose  touch  may  seem  to  leave  some  great  error  un- 
harmed, when  the  first  agitation  will  reveal  that  it  is 
cloven  asunder,— dead. 


V. 


ITS    AFTERGLOW. 


ITS    AFTERGLOW. 


I. 

SALIENT  characteristic  of  this  century  has  been 
the  effort  to  restate  Christianity  in  some  way  that 
would  secure  it  from  that  hard  colHsion  with  the 
best  tendencies  of  the  age  into  which  CathoHcism  and 
Calvinism  alike  had  brought  it.  When  Independence  was 
born  in  America  a  hundred  years  ago,  it  recognised 
instinctively  the  foe  of  Liberty  ;  it  launched  its  bolt  straight 
at  the  throne  of  Christianity,  destroying  its  authority  in 
civil  government,  aflirming  that  the  true  society  could 
only  be  built  up  in  freedom  from  its  interference,  in 
direct  reversal  of  the  assumption  of  ages  that  ail  govern- 
ment and  civilisation  must  be  based  upon  it.  When  that 
Republic  entered  upon  this  century,  its  progress  was  already 
sufficient  to  justify  the  brave  free-thinkers  who  founded 
it.  Every  people  of  the  old  world  knew,  every  priesr 
knew,  that  free  and  happy  societies  were  growing  up  in 
the  New  World,  with  order,  arts,  and  education,  unfettered 
by  the  ecclesiastical  systems  and  creeds  which  had  so  long 
pretended  to  carry  with  them  the  favours  of  Heaven.  The 
present   Archbishop  of  Canterbury  once   defended  the 


CHRISTIANITY. 


union  of  Church  and  State  in  this  country,  by  pointing 
out  that  in  America  their  severance  had  naturally  led  to 
the  growth  of  Socinianism.  It  was  a  very  ingenuous  argu- 
ment, and  has  the  advantage  of  being  true.  Liberated 
from  all  disabilities  imposed  on  free  inquiry,  no  longer 
bribed  by  the  social  or  pecuniary  endowments  of  an 
established  creed,  the  human  mind  found  in  America  its 
first  opportunity  to  prosecute  freely  and  fully  those  reli- 
gions, revisions,  and  criticisms  which  gained  a  certain 
embodiment  in  Unitarianism.  This  movement  is  to  be 
distinguished  from  all  the  radicalism  and  iconoclasm  of 
France,  England,  and  America  which  preceded  it,  and 
conquered  for  it  the  liberty  under  which  it  could  grow. 
It  was,  in  both  England  and  America,  a  movement  in  the 
interest  of  Christianity,  not  against  it.  The  Unitarians 
believed  that  the  common  theology  represented  not  real 
Christianity  but  its  abuses.  They  were  encouraged  in  this 
belief  by  the  important  discovery  that  the  great  central 
dogma  of  all  the  churches — the  Trinity — was  totally  un- 
founded and  unscriptural. 

An  earnest,  honest  and  learned  criticism,  turned  during 
the  last  generation  to  the  work  of  searching  out  the 
genuine  text  of  the  New  Testament  and  its  real  sense, 
has  amply  justified  the  misgivings  of  the  Unitarians  as  to 
the  scriptural  authenticity  of  the  dogmas  of  orthodox 
Christianity.  The  task  crowned  by  the  splendid  discovery 
of  the  Codex  Sinaiticus  by  Von  Tischendorf  and  the 
invaluable  critical  labours  of  that  scholar,  may  be  regarded 
as  nearly  complete ;  and  the  pious  frauds  of  fifty  genera- 
tions are  nearly  exposed.     A  story  is  told  of  a  clergyman. 


ITS  AFTERGLOW.  103 

who,  in  conversation  with  a  Unitarian  fellow-traveller 
urged  against  him  the  text  of  the  Three  Heavenly  Wit- 
nesses. "  Is  it  possible,  "  said  the  Unitarian,  "  that  you 
do  not  know  that  the  text  is  a  forgery  ?"  "  Well,  yes," 
replied  the  clergyman,  "  but  I  didn't  know  you  knew 
it."  That  candid  clergyman  had  but  attempted  to  carry 
on  in  an  age  when  it  is  not  so  safe  the  old  priestly  plan 
of  theologically  manipulating  the  Bible  while  that  book 
was  reserved  for  the  clergy's  exclusive  inspection.  Porson 
ninety  years  ago  pointed  out  that  no  Greek  MSS.,  but 
only  the  Vulgate,  had  anything  about  the  three  witnesses, 
and  so  expunged  from  every  honest  Bible  the  only  text 
that  even  faintly  suggested  a  Trinity. 

It  has  now  been  proved  that  it  is  equally  by  fraud  that 
the  idea  of  the  incarnation  of  God  in  Christ  has  been 
imported  into  the  New  Testament.  For  those  who  have 
not  at  hand  Von  Tischendorfs  last  revision,  and  Dr. 
Davidson's  introduction  to  his  own  excellent  translation 
of  it,  I  may  here  mention  the  more  salient  instances  in 
which  the  readers  of  the  English  version  are  deceived 
with  regard  to  the  sense  of  the  New  Testament  on  impor- 
tant points.  In  Col.  ii,  2,  "  God,  even  Christ," — "  Christ" 
is  a  gloss.  In  Rom.  ix,  5,  we  have  the  phrase  "  Christ 
came,  who  is  over  all  God  blessed  for  ever ; "  the  word 
"  came  "  has  been  supplied  by  the  translators,  a  period  has 
been  withheld  where  usage  renders  it  natural ;  and  the 
true  reading  is:  "Whose  are  the  fiithers,  and  of  whom  is 
Christ  after  the  flesh.  God,  who  is  over  all,  be  blessed 
for  ever.  Amen."  In  Titus  ii,  13,  usage  equally  requires 
a  comma  to   divide   two   parts   of  a  sentence   skilfully 


I04  CHRISTIANITY. 


welded  together  :  instead  of  "  The  glorious  appearing  of 
our  Great  God  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,"  the  comma 
which  would  have  certainly  appeared  in  an  undoctrinal 
text  makes  it  the  "  appearing  of  our  Great  God,  and  of 
our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ."  In  Luke  xxiv,  51-2,  the  words 
stating  that  Jesus  was  "  carried  up  into  heaven,  and  they 
worshipped  him  "  are  not  genuine.  In  Phil,  ii,  6,  instead 
of  Christ's  being  said  to  have  "  thought  it  not  robbery 
to  be  equal  with  God,"  the  rendering  is  he  "  did  not 
think  equality  with  God  a  thing  to  be  grasped  at."  In  i 
Tim.  iii,  16,  "God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh"  has  been 
made  out  by  an  ingenious  change  of  the  Greek  o?  (who) 
into  0€O9  (God).  How  far  the  English  translators  were 
parties  to  such  frauds  we  cannot  tell,  though  we  must 
suspect  that  they  knowingly  perverted  some  important 
texts, — e.g.,  2  Tim.  iii,  16,  where  "Every  scripture 
inspired  by  God,  is  profitable"  is  made  to  read  that  "  all 
scripture  is  given  by  God,  and  is  profitable."  Those 
translators  excluded  from  their  work  the  ablest  Hebrew 
scholar  of  the  time  (Broughton)  whose  honesty  was  too 
pronounced  ;  and  it  is  not  a  happy  augury  of  veracity  in 
the  coming  revised  translation,  that  the  friend  of  Von 
Tischendorf,  the  learned  and  incorruptible  Dr.  Samuel 
Davidson,  should  have  no  part  in  it. 

The  dogmas  of  a  Trinity  and  the  co-eternal  deity  of 
Christ  being  discovered  to  have  been  impositions  on  the 
Bible,  the  general  authenticity  of  the  book  has  been 
weakened.  But  while  the  earlier  Unitarians  maintained 
the  inspiration  of  the  book,  they  saw  that  the  most 
momentous  dogmas  were  not  so  clearly  stated  in  it,  that 


ITS  AFTERGL  O  W.  105 

one  need  give  them  entire  credence.  There  were  texts 
for  them,  indeed,  but  also  texts  against  them.  Some  of 
these  dogmas  were  morally  repulsive, — such  as  atonement 
through  the  blood  of  Christ,  and  the  eternal  and 
physical  character  of  Hell, — and  when  Christianity  was 
relieved  of  these  it  presented  a  very  different  aspect. 
\\'hon  the  more  deforming  dogmas  were  removed  many  a 
long  hidden  treasure  was  revealed.  The  beautiful  dis- 
courses and  parables  of  Christ,  his  pure  life,  his  heroic 
fidelity,  his  martyrdom,  acquired  an  impressiveness  which 
they  could  never  possess  while  they  were  all  merely  inci- 
dental— at  best  ancillary— to  the  awful  and  mysterious 
doctrines  by  which  alone  it  was  said,  men  were  to  be 
saved  from  eternal  anguish.  It  was  inevitable  that  the 
system  should  be  seen  and  judged  apart  from  its  worst 
corruptions.  This  necessity  appeared  in  various  countries, 
and,  leaving  now  the  sectarian  embodiments  of  it,  we 
may  say  that  there  flowered  out  of  the  most  living  branch 
of  Christendom  what  is  called  Liberal  Christianity.  This 
is  the  Afterglow  of  that  day  which  has  set, — sequel  of  the 
thousand  years  in  which  the  system  in  its  ecclesiastical 
and  dogmatic  forms  had  ruled,  and  then  reigned,  and 
finally  declined. 

II. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  set  too  high  an  estimate  upon 
the  learning  and  industry  which  have  been  brought  to 
the  task  thus  briefly  described:  inestimable  has  been 
the  light  cast  upon  the  life  and  character  of  Christ,  and 
the  history  of  his  time.     No  dawn  ever  broke  from  the 


io6  CHRISTIANITY. 

East  more  resplendent  than  that  with  which  the  research 
of  the  West  has  flooded  the  East  itself.  But  as  it  has 
proceeded  one  thing  has  become  increasingly  plain, 
namely,  that  Liberal  Christianity  is  no  real  dawn  at  all, 
but  a  brief  Afterglow. 

It  began  to  waver  almost  as  soon  as  it  arose.  Thus, 
when  it  was  discovered  that  the  Trinity  is  an  unfounded 
dogma,  the  question  had  to  be  met ;  what,  then,  is  the 
real  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  concerning  Christ  ? 
The  Bible  is  not  Trinitarian,  but  is  it  Unitarian  ?  Cer- 
tainly not,  that  is  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that  term. 
The  New  Testament  writers  have  various  views  of  Jesus  : 
one  believes  him  the  Jewish  Messiah ;  another  believes 
him  the  personified  creative  energy  of  God ;  another 
thinks  him  a  mysterious  divine  emanation  ;  but  there  is 
no  warrant  in  that  book  for  believing  Jesus  to  have  been 
merely  human  in  his  nature.  No  mere  man  would  have 
said  "  My  father  is  greater  than  I,"  or  "  I  am  the  resur- 
rection and  the  life."  Then  the  New  Testament  is  full 
of  miracles,  which  cannot  be  denied  without  tearing  the 
book  to  pieces  :  especially  do  all  the  hopes  held  out  by 
it  to  believers  centre  in  the  bodily  resurrection  of  Christ 
from  death.  Now  all  these  things  were  as  shocking  to 
reason  as  the  dogmas  of  God's  wrath  and  hell-fire  had 
been  to  moral  sentiment.  To  men  who  had  begun  to 
think,  there  was  something  repugnant  in  this  idea  of  a 
deity  working  through  a  secondary  personage,  and  some- 
thing inconsistent  with  simplicity  and  nature  in  the  idea 
of  primogeniture  introduced  with  the  notion  of  a  specially 
favoured,  beloved,  or  only-begotten  son  of  God.     So  the 


ITS  AFTERGLOW.  107 

next  step  had  inevitably  to  be  taken.  This  was  to  impeach 
the  accuracy  and  authority  of  the  record,  to  claim  that  it 
was  written  after  popular  tradition  by  superstitious  men, 
each  with  some  theory  to  support ;  and  yet  hold  that 
there  is  reflected  in  it  the  wisdom  and  greatness  of  Christ 
with  sufficient  clearness  to  constitute  the  essence  of  a 
religion.  It  was  still  maintained  by  some,  and  is  now, 
that  even  after  the  miracles  are  gone,  and  the  super- 
natural authentication  of  both  Bible  and  Christ  gone, 
and  Jesus  stands  simply  as  a  good  and  wise  man,  and  a 
martyr,  there  may  yet  remain  a  system  of  Christianity 
worthy  to  be  maintained  and  extended  as  the  right 
religion  of  mankind. 

In  all  this  one  thing  was  clear,  namely  that  some  motives 
were  at  work,  whether  consciously  or  not,  beyond  love  of 
truth,  to  induce  men  to  hold  on  so  pertinaciously  to  the 
Christian  name  after  it  had  ceased  to  represent  a  living 
and  credible  thing.  These  motives  have  been  abundantly 
displayed  in  recent  controversies.  Some  of  them  are 
ver}^  poor  indeed.  To  one,  Christianity  seems  to  be  a 
kind  of  spell,  the  very  name  having  become  a  fetish.  I 
do  not  know  that  such  are  to  be  held  responsible  for 
their  word-worship,  for  ages  of  superstition  have  cast  the 
mould  of  their  brains.  But  argument  would  be  wasted  on 
them.  They  are  like  those  who  gather  at  Rome  around 
the  Bambino  of  Ara  Coeli,  the  little  effigy  of  Christ  said 
to  have  been  carved  out  of  an  olive-tree  on  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  and  painted  by  St.  Luke :  even  now  some  devotees 
believe  that  the  security  of  pontifical  Rome  depends  on 
that  very  ugly  Bambino,  though  it  was   that  which  dis- 


loS  CHRISTIANITY. 


gusted  Gibbon  as  he  looked  upon  its  worship,  and  led 
him  to  write  the  history  which  was  one  of  the  first  blows 
that  weakened  not  only  the  pontificate  but  Christianity 
itself.  Others  hold  on  to  Christianity  because  it  is  a  name 
to  conjure  with.  He  who  drops  it  loses  what  is  called 
\)o\\l&\y  prestige,  so  called  by  persons  who  do  not  reflect 
\\\':s.\.  prestige  is  a  foreign  word  meaning  deceit.  Though 
v.'e  reject  the  authority  of  Christianity  as  a  history  and 
a  system  of  truth,  we  must  keep  up  the  name  for  its 
popularity  !  This  is  too  much  in  the  vein  of  Mephisto- 
pheles  who  advises  Faust  to  "  take  care  of  words,  and 
leave  things  to  themselves."  We  need  not  consider  his 
advice,  nor  that  of  those  who  praise  Christianity  for 
the  sake  of  the  people,  when  they  know  that  the  word 
means  to  the  people  a  totally  different  thing  from  what 
it  means  to  them.  Others  hold  on  to  the  word  for  political 
reasons.  Great  national  interests  have  become  bound  up 
with  the  Christian  religion,  and  they  think  these  can  be 
preserved  only  so  long  as  the  name  lasts  ;  so  they  wish 
us  to  think  as  we  please,  but  only  call  our  thoughts  Chris- 
tianity. But  we  may  feel  pretty  sure  that  any  interest 
which  rests  upon  so  transparent  a  falsehood  will  have  to 
find  a  better  basis,  or  else  fall,  some  time  or  other,  and 
it  may  as  well  be  now  as  at  any  other  time.  It  need  not 
stand  on  the  order  of  its  going  !  And  the  same  may 
be  said  to  those  M-ho  dread  the  moral  consequences  upon 
the  masses  of  their  discovery  of  the  long  deception  which 
has  been  practised  upon  them.  The  greater  danger, 
surely,  will  arise  from  trying  to  continue  the  deception 
after  it  has  been  exposed.     When  the  time  came  in  Rome 


I 


ITS  AFTERGLOW.  109 

when  two  soothsayers  could  not  meet  each  other  with- 
out laughing,  Rome  had  not  much  farther  to  go  before 
her  fall.  And  we  find  much  the  same  state  of  things 
here,  when  eminent  clergymen  are  driven  to  apologise 
for  calling  themselves  Christians,  and  others  smile  at  creeds 
they  are  under  oath  to  preach. 

Somewhat  more  honourable,  but  still  quite  fanciful,  is 
the  motive  of  those  who  hold  on  to  the  Christian  name 
because  they  think  it  necessary  in  order  to  preserve  the 
continuity  of  our  religious  development.  They  maintain 
that  though  the  England  of  Charles  I.  is  very  different 
from  the  England  of  Victoria,  yet  there  is  a  national 
continuity  preserved  with  the  old  name  and  the  old  flag  ; 
and  so,  they  maintain,  the  evolution  of  religion  must  go 
on  under  the  old  Christian  name  and  its  symbols.  Even 
were  it  admissible  that  religion  sliould  be  compared  with 
a  national  life,  there  is  a  fallacy  in  supposing  that  the  real 
continuity  of  a  nation  depends  upon  a  name  or  a  flag. 
Under  various  names, — Britain,  Albion,  England, — under 
many  flags,  this  nation  has  preserved  its  continuity  and  its 
greatness.  Even  in  a  nation,  continuity  is  just  the  thing 
that  cannot  be  broken.  It  is  like  the  individuality  of  a 
man  who,  though  he  may  pass  under  a  pet  name  in  his 
childhood,  a  nickname  in  his  boyhood,  a  family  name  in 
his  youth,  a  title  in  his  manhood,  is  the  same  man 
through  all.  But  apart  from  this,  we  contend  that  it  is 
the  peculiar  glory  of  a  religion  that  it  is  not  national, 
nor  even  ethnical,  but  human.  Unless  the  absurdity  be 
contended  for  that  Christianity  represents  a  world-evolu- 
tion its  continuity  can  only  mean  the  self-righteousness  of 


CHRISTIANITY. 


a.  group  of  nations  or  races,  in  which  case  the  theory  aims 
a  blow  at  that  continuity  of  the  ReUgion  of  Humanity, 
which  a  miserable  sectarianism  denies.  Humanity  cries 
out  in  our  age,  "  While  one  says,  '  I  am  of  Buddha,' 
another,  'I  am  of  Mohammed,'  another,  'I  am  of  Christ,' 
are  ye  not  all  sectarian  and  self-righteous  ?  " 

III. 

I  know  that  the  men  who  hold  the  Christian  name  on 
this  fanciful  theory  of  "  continuity "  are  not  consciously 
sectarian  ;  but  however  broad  or  human  they  may  be  in- 
dividually, their  tribute  to  the  religion  of  a  single  race  is 
finally  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  narrowest  form  of 
their  religion, — the  form  in  which  it  is  understood  by  the 
masses,  and  maintained  by  all  Christian  priesthoods. 
Some  years  ago  the  noble  Garibaldi,  by  his  heroism,  won 
a  magnificent  victory  for  the  freedom  of  Italy  from  Papal 
tyranny,  against  the  will  of  his  king,  who  was  held  fast  by 
his  master  in  France,  Napoleon  III.  who,  in  turn,  was 
pledged  to  uphold  his  master,  the  Fope,  and  not  allow 
the  King  of  Italy  to  invade  his  dominions.  But  when 
Garibaldi  gained  his  victory,  and  all  Italy  was  filled  with 
enthusiasm,  the  king  of  that  country  was  unable  to  sup- 
press him,  or  to  restore  the  conquered  province  to  the 
Pope,  because  of  the  people.  But  the  thing  was  managed 
in  this  way.  A  very  liberal  Italian  minister  negotiated 
with  Garibaldi  to  deliver  the  advantage  he  had  won  into 
his  highly  liberal  hands.  Garibaldi  could  not  doubt  that 
in  the  hands  of  such  a  liberal  minister  the  cause  would 


ITS  AFTERGLOW. 


be  safe.  But  when  the  minister  received  it,  he  gave  it  to 
his  master  the  king ;  the  king  gave  it  up  to  his  master  the 
French  Emperor;  the  Emperor  gave  it  up  to  his  master, 
the  Pope  ;  and  thus  the  grand  achievement  of  Garibaldi 
travelled  through  all  the  degrees  until  it  strengthened 
the  very  tyranny  at  which  his  blow  was  aimed.  It  is  very 
much  the  same  with  the  great  achievements  for  freedom 
of  modern  Christian  liberalism.  Some  great  rationalist 
wins  his  province  for  freedom,  and  delivers  it  up  to  Uni- 
tarian Christianity,  where  its  negations. are  left,  and  its  ad- 
missions seized  by  Nonconformists  to  reinforce  orthodoxy, 
or  the  Broad  Church  steals  its  fire  to  give  a  new  lease  of 
life  to  the  Established  Church.  Thus  the  rationalist  who 
consents  to  call  himself  a  Christian,  in  the  very  proportion 
that  he  is  able  and  eminent,  is  sending  fresh  power  to 
prop  the  throne  of  superstition.  Whatever  Christianity 
may  mean  at  the  apex,  at  the  base  it  means  certain  gross 
superstitions  and  horrible  dogmas  ;  those  it  will  represent 
to  the  masses ;  but  how  can  the  ignorant  be  delivered, 
when  it  is  competent  for  any  priest  or  preacher  to  tell 
them  that  such  and  such  great  scholars  and  thinkers  are 
Christians  ?  "  What !"  cries  the  preacher  to  the  poor 
working  man,  who  begins  to  doubt  the  horrible  dogmas 
"  do  you  think  you  know  more  than  Professor  Newman, 
who  has  joined  an  organisation  for  'the  promotion  of  the 
principles  of  Unitarian  Christianity,'  or  than  Martineau, 
who  admits  Christianity  to  be  true,  or  more  than  Dean 
Stanley,  or  Bishop  Colenso,  Dr.  Jowett,  and  other  great 
Christians  ?"  The  preacher  is  suppressing  tmth,  suggest- 
ing falsehood  :  no  one  of  the  men  he  names  believes  the 


CHRISTIANITY. 


Christianity  which  he  is  imposing  on  that  working  man  : 
yet  it  is  those  great  men  themselves  who,  by  using  a  title 
of  double  meaning,  enable  the  double-tongued  to  forge 
from  their  reputation  new  chains  for  the  human  mind. 
Nor  can  they  prevent  this  result  so  long  as  they  profess 
belief  in  Christianity.  All  their  refined  qualifications, 
their  textual  criticisms,  their  philosophisings  about  con- 
tinuity, and  the  rest,  have  no  relation  to  the  common 
sense  and  daily  life  of  mankind.  And  it  is  most  wonder- 
ful that  they  do  not  see  that  a  religion  which  reijuires 
all  those  "  ifs  "  and  "  buts,"  and  requires  critical  com- 
mentaries in  order  to  be  made  true,  is  thereby  disqualified 
from  being  a  faith  for  mankind.  It  is  an  infatuation  to 
think  that  a  religion  can  be  real  to  masses  of  men  which 
is  anywise  dependent  on  ancient  Hebrew  and  Greek 
books,  or  upon  the  scholastic  criticism  and  metaphysics 
of  this  or  any  other  age, 

IV. 

Consider  the  various  theories  that  have  arisen  under  the 
Atterglow.  One  says,  "  Christianity  means  love  to  God 
and  love  to  man.  Christ  himself  says.  On  those  two 
things  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets."  But,  we  ask, 
how  about  Christ's  other  sayings,  that  men  must  be  saved 
by  believing  on  him,  and  if  they  do  not  believe  on  him, 
must  go  into  eternal  despair,  where  the  worm  never  dies, 
and  the  fire  is  not  quenched  ?  Oh,  they  argue,  Christ 
doesn't  mean  that ;  he  means  something  else  than  that  : 
he  means  the  fire  will  be  quenched,  the  worm  zuill  die. 
Very  possibly.     No  doubt  examination  of  the  original 


I 


ITS  AFTERGL OW.  113 


Greek,  and  a  long  drill  in  exegesis  and  hermeneutics,  will 
enable  my  neighbour  the  blacksmith  to  find  that  the  texts 
must  be  modified.  But  he  may  wish  a  religion  adapted 
to  a  poor  man  who  doesn't  know  Greek,  and  who,  if  he 
is  to  depend  on  authority  at  all,  will  naturally  depend,  not 
on  ours,  but  that  of  the  sect  in  which  he  was  born. 

Another  theorist  tells  us  that  Christianity  means  the 
"  Fatherhood  of  God  and  Brotherhood  of  Man."  But,  we 
urge,  Christ  several  times  repudiated  that  brotherhood, 
declared  that  the  Jews  were  chosen  above  all  races,  called 
the  alien  Canaanites  "  dogs,"  who  had  no  right  to  the 
religious  advantages  of  Jews,  told  his  apostles  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Gentiles.  "  Ah,  but  those  texts 
occur  in  doubtful  books,  and  they  don't  mean  what  they 
seem  to  say."  Very  likely  not,  I  answer;  but  how  can 
you  maintain  before  the  uncritical  masses  that  Christianity 
teaches  human  brotherhood,  when  the  only  books  they 
have  about  Christ  make  him  teach  the  contrary,  and  when 
the  whole  history  of  Christianity  shows  its  representatives 
hating  and  killing  others  in  its  name  ? 

Then  a  third  comes  forward  to  affirm  that  the  life  and 
character  of  Christ  were  perfect,  and  that  these  supply  the 
basis  of  a  credible  Christianity.  What  man  needs  is  a 
perfect  human  and  divine  type,  and  Christ  is  that.  But 
where  do  they  find  such  a  Christ  ?  They  have  to  evolve 
him  from  their  inner  consciousness,  or  by  elaborate  com- 
parative criticism,  for  certainly  no  such  being  is  plainly 
reported  in  the  Bible.  The  Christ  of  the  New  Testament 
is  obviously  egotistical  and  fanatical.  He  attacks  with 
physical  violence  persons  engaged  in  an  honest  calling. 


114  CHRISTIANITY. 


and  injures  their  property  ;  he  denounces  his  neighbours 
as  vipers  and  children  of  hell ;  he  believes  in  ghosts,  devils, 
and  in  eternal  fires  for  a  portion  of  the  human  family.    If 
vi^e  tiun  from  that  Christ  to  another  aspect  in  which  he  is 
represented,  he  is  equally  a  type  of  character  which  no 
man  would  wish  his  son  to  imitate.     Unresisting  even 
to  abjectness,  asserting  his  own  perfections  to  such  an 
extent  that  his  meekness  becomes  affectation,  telling  us 
himself  that  he  said  a  thing  merely  for  effect,  decrying 
the  world,  denouncing  the  rich,  denying  the  affections, 
even  turning  away  with  contempt  from  his  mother  and 
sisters,  we  see  in  this  other  Christ  a  type  of  character 
perfunctory  and  spiritless.     Now,  understand,  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  least  that  such  were  the  real  characteristics 
of  Christ ;  I  believe  that  the  various  types  of  character 
ascribed  to  him  would  be  impossible  in  any  one  man,  and 
am  quite   sure    that   they  are   mere   sectarian  theories, 
asceticisms,  fanaticisms  of  the  time  personified,  and  called 
by  Christ's  name  for  the  same  reason  that  people  still  call 
their  little  schemes  and  schools  Christianity, — that   is, 
because  the  name  carried  weight  among  the  people  they 
wished  to  conciliate.     But  though  we  can  by  elaborate 
criticism  relieve  Christ  personally  of  most  of  these  faults 
and  find  a  great  heroic  man  there  (though  no  model)  it 
can   only  be  done   by  abandoning   Christianity  in  any 
conceivable  shape.    For  if  we  deny  that  he  is  responsible 
for  the  gross  demonology  and  violent  conduct  ascribed 
to  him,  we  are  left  without  any  record  of  his  virtue  which 
may  not  be  equally  denied.    So  soon  as  we  found  a  system 
on  hira  we  challenge  such  denial  from  rival  systems.    It 


ITS  AFTERGLOW. 


is  dishonest  to  go  through  the  New  Testament  and  put 
everything  you  Hke  on  one  side,  and  all  you  dislike  on 
the  other,  and  say  one  parcel  is  true  and  the  other  false. 
That  is  using  false  weights  and  measures.  Where  would 
science  be  if  men  of  science  decided  on  the  facts  of 
Nature  by  their  preferences,  and  a  man  were  permitted 
to  discredit  a  discovered  law  because  he  had  a  distaste 
for  it  ?  What  should  we  say  of  a  judge  who  should 
charge  a  jury  to  believe  so  much  of  the  evidence  as  they 
found  it  comfortable  to  believe?  This  kind  of  dis- 
honesty, scorned  everywhere  else,  is  even  the  general  rule 
in  theological  discussion.  This  is  proved  by  the  fact  that 
Christians,  even  liberal  ministers,  do  not  hesitate  to  label 
all  the  virtues  "  Christian," — Christian  charity,  Christian 
liberty,  and  I  wonder  they  do  not  say  Christian  gravitation 
and  electricity, — when  they  know  that  there  is  not  one 
moral  law  or  maxim  of  Christianity  which  was  not  the 
common  currency  of  all  great  religions  before  the  birth 
of  Christ.  Nor  do  they  hesitate  to  speak  of  pagan  dark- 
ness and  heathen  idolatry  as  if  other  religions  monopolised 
ignorance  and  superstition,  while  Christianity  monopolised 
the  excellencies  and  the  light.  All  of  which  is  dishonest 
and  immoral.  Christ's  assault  on  them  that  sold  doves  is 
as  much  a  part  of  the  Bible  as  Paul's  chapter  on  charity. 
Mohammed's  chapter  on  charity  is  as  much  a  part  of  his 
religion  as  his  paradise  of  pleasure.  Men  have  no  right  to 
take  their  own  system  at  its  best  and  that  of  others  at  its 
worst. 

V. 

Such  injustice,  such  unfair  glozirig  over  of  difficulties, 


1 1 6  CHRISTIANITY. 

are  the  signs  of  a  system  in  decay.  No  longer  able  to 
live  by  fair  means  it  has  recourse  to  means  not  fair.  There 
are  painful  indications  that  the  Afterglow  is  following  the 
plan  of  the  dogmatic  day  which  preceded  it,  trying  to  pro- 
long itself  artificially  by  deliberately  discouraging  honesty 
of  research.  The  Unitarians  of  England  and  America 
have  done  their  utmost  to  make  Christianity  consistent 
with  truth  and  freedom,  but  they  have  shown  that  it  is 
impossible.  If  I  apply  to  the  Unitarian  Association  they 
will  admit  me  only  under  a  rule  that  makes  me  say  I  am 
a  Christian.  It  may  be  a  falsehood,  but  they  will  not 
investigate  that ;  or  it  may  be  that  my  Christianity  would 
be  of  that  kind  which  would  burn  a  freethinker  as  Calvin 
burned  Servetus,  and  yet  I  shall  be  admitted  ;  but  if  I 
frankly  say,  "  I  believe  in  God  and  in  immortality ;  I 
love  Christ  and  regard  him  as  the  best  and  wisest  of  men, 
and  yet  I  do  not  think  it  honest  to  say  I  am  a  Christian," 
— then  the  fundamental  law  of  their  organisation  excludes 
me.  By  so  doing  they  encourage  me  to  tell  a  lie.  Every 
young  liberal  offered  their  aid  and  sympathy  on  condition 
of  pronouncing  their  shibboleth — "Christianity" — is  en- 
couraged to  shape  his  faith  to  suit  his  interest.  So  all  their 
professed  liberality,  all  their  publication  of  the  works  of 
dead  radicals  like  Parker,  cannot  atone  for  the  daily  and 
hourly  wrong  they  inflict  on  the  living  by  dishonouring 
the  principle  of  veracity  and  fidelity,  by  rewarding 
compliance  with  their  creed,  and  punishing,  however 
indirectly,  the  independence  which  will  not  pronounce  it. 
Theodore  Parker  did  not  find  it  his  duty  to  disown  the 
Christian  name  ;  but  there  are  others  who   do  find  it  a 


ITS  AFTERGLOW.  117 

duty  to  do  so,  and  among  these  the  congregation  he 
founded,  and  nine-tenths  of  those  who  knew  and  sym- 
pathised with  him  while  he  was  living.  These  believe, 
however  mistakenly,  that  they  represent  a  tendency  of  the 
religious  life  of  our  time.  What  cheer  has  Unitarianism  for 
these  ?  The  English  Unitarians  have  an  honourable 
history,  and  no  page  of  it  is  brighter  than  the  last;  but 
they  can  retain  what  they  have  won  only  by  following  up 
their  advance.  They  have  reduced  the  ancient  chain  on 
thought  to  one  link — the  Christian  name, — but  that, 
unless  broken,  will  increasingly  preserve  in  it  all  the 
galling  intolerance  of  the  links  that  are  destroyed. 

The  painful  warrior,  famoused  for  fight, 
After  a  thousand  victories  once  foiled. 
Is  from  the  books  of  honour  razed  quite, 
And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  which  he  toiled. 

A  fundamental  rule  declares  the  object  of  their  Asso- 
ciation (all  the  world  can  judge  them  by)  to  be  "  promo- 
tion of  the  principles  of  Unitarian  Christianity ;"  under 
it  all  the  Brahmos  of  India,  with  Sen  and  Mozoomdar,  all 
the  Theists,  Jews,  rationalists, — George  Eliot,  Carlyle, 
Spencer,  Tyndall,  Huxley,  Thomas  Scott,  Kalisch,  Miss 
Cobbe, — are  excluded.  And  this  is  the  religion  of  love 
to  man, — of  Fatherhood  and  Brotherhood  ! 

No,  it  is  the  mere  Afterglow  of  a  Religion,  preserving, 
even  in  its  faint  ghostly  light,  enough  of  the  semblance  of 
the  old  dogmatic  day  which  has  set,  to  remind  us  of  the 
essential  errors  by  which  Christianity  has  perished.  It  is 
not  within  the  power  of  any  mind,  however  ingenious,  to 


1 1 8  CHRISTIANITY. 


liberalise  Christianity  so  far  that  it  will  include  all  human- 
ity in  an  equal  embrace, — Jews  and  Gentiles,  Hindoos, 
Mohammedans,  Buddhists — and  draw  no  line  against  any 
tnan's  convictions. 

Nor  is  it  yet  in  the  power  of  any  to  frame  any  definition 
of  Christianity,  however  liberal,  which  will  not  rest  upon 
the  fatal  figment  that  our  race  culminated  religiously  in  a 
small  superstitious  tribe  of  Syria  over  1800  years  ago. 
We  may  progress  in  science,  literature,  and  the  arts  ; 
but  in  religion  progress  ended  in  Palestine,  and  the  highest 
civilization  must  always  look  backwards,  not  forwards,  for 
its  highest  light,  truth,  and  life  ! 

It  is  on  the  ruins  of  that  sectarian  wall  between  man 
and  man,  on  the  grave  of  that  retrogressive  superstition 
that  Religion  now  takes  her  stand  to  wait  and  watch  for 
the  morning. 


VI. 


THE    MORROW. 


THE    MORROW. 


HERE  is  a  fallacy,  surviving  even  among 
educated  people,  as  a  vague  feeling,  that 
there  is  some  causative  connection  between 
Christianity  and  the  higher  civilisation  of  the  chief 
nations  which  profess  it.  This,  we  know,  is  the  main 
argument  of  the  missionary :  he  confounds  the  oriental 
man  by  claiming  all  the  science,  literature,  and  arts  of 
Europe  as  the  fruits  of  Christianity,  thereby  compelling 
all  of  our  men  of  science  and  culture — though  denounced 
for  materialism  here — to  sanction  the  dogmas  which  our 
sects  are  sending  out  there. 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  there  was  reflected 
in  Christianity  a  more  refined  type  of  woman,  and  a 
higher  recognition  of  her  moral  influence,  by  reason  of 
its  ideal  Madonna,  than  existed  in  the  European  religions 
which  it  superseded,  though  under  those  woman  had 
larger  political  rights  ;  also  that  it  held  the  germs  of  a 
higher  political  regime  in  its  doctrine  of  the  cciuality  of 
souls  before  God  ;  and  it  taught  the  dignity  of  labour  in 
its  theory  that  Christ  was  a  poor  mechanic.    But  it  would 


CHRIS  TIANITY. 


be  a  serious  error  to  suppose  that  such  ideas  are  con- 
tained only  in  Christianity.  Other  and  eariier  reUgions 
have  their  Madonnas,  and  their  deities  incarnate  in 
humble  forms,  and  taught  human  equality;  and  if  any 
other  of  those  religions  had  happened  to  get  the  mastery 
of  Europe  the  same  ideas  would  have  been  selected  out 
of  them.  It  is  race,  time,  circumstance,  which  keep  the 
same  ideas  dormant  in  one  place  and  develope  them  in 
another.  These  determine  religious  forms,  immeasurably 
more  than  religious  forms  determine  them. 

As  proof  of  this  we  have  only  to  consider  the  condition 
of  Christianity  among  other  races  than  our  own.  Forty- 
five  years  ago  a  young  man  who  had  graduated  with  the 
highest  honours  at  Oxford,  filled  with  zeal  for  the  spread 
of  Christianity,  went  as  a  missionary  to  Aleppo  He 
lived  there  and  in  various  regions  of  the  Ottoman  empire, 
where  he  could  fully  compare  those  of  his  own  faith  with 
Moslems.  There  were  Christians  of  all  kinds  and  degrees. 
The  letters  written  home  by  that  earnest  and  orthodox 
missionary  were  published  in  1856,*  and  I  fear  the  book 
is  now  out  of  print.  He  found  that  the  animosities  of 
the  Christians  to  each  other  rendered  them  helpless 
before  the  united  Turks,  and  yet  that  the  Turks  were 
anxious  to  reconcile  the  Christians — Greek,  Roman 
Catholic,  Syriac,  and  the  rest — to  each  other.  While 
conscious  of  a  desire  that  Turkish  Government  should 
be    overthrown,    the   missionary   sees   no   chance   of  a 

*  Personal  Narrative,  in  Letters,  principally  from  Turkey,  in  the 
years  1830-3.  By  F.  W.  Newman.  London:  Holyoake  &  Co. , 
Fleet  Street.     1856. 


THE  MORROW.  123 


worthier  successor,  "  no  mark  in  the  Christians  of  higher 
quahties."  They  are  "  neither  strong  nor  wise  nor 
ingenious  nor  active-minded."  The  Turks  leave  to  them 
freedom  of  the  press,  yet  the  Christians  have  no  books 
and  their  intellects  were  wholly  uninstructed.  He  says 
that  the  missionaries  there  have  to  leave  the  Turks  and 
try  to  convert  the  Christians.  He  and  the  other  zealous 
missionaries  with  him  shrank  from  the  native  Christians 
as  "  dangerous  and  faithless  allies,"  and  finally  they 
relinquished  the  idea  of  building  a  church  there,  and 
came  home  disheartened. 

This  is  the  testimony  of  one  who  when  he  wrote  it, 
and  for  some  time  afterwards,  was  a  Christian  zealot, — 
Professor  Newman.  It  shows  that  low  races  find  their 
barbarism  harmonious  with  Christianity  while  advanced 
races  are  crediting  it  with  their  civilisation. 

The  Nestorian  Christian  will  kill  a  man  if  he  works  on 
Sunday.  He  finds  in  the  book  given  him  as  the  Word 
of  God  as  ample  warrant  for  his  barbarism  as  an  English- 
man can  find  in  it  for  his  civility.  And  just  the  same  is 
true  of  all  other  religions. 

Mohammedanism,  which  among  Turks  turns  to  a  cruel 
superstition,  once  blossomed  in  Persia  to  a  beautiful 
mystical  religion  represented  by  the  finest  literary  age 
known  to  Asia. 

TI. 

Professor  Newman  has  related  in  another  work 
("  Phases  of  Faith ")  the  impression  made  upon  his 
mind  by  a  Mussulman  mechanic  who,  having  listened  to 


124  CHRISTIANITY. 


his  instruction,  remarked  that  while  the  English  seemed 
to  be  superior  in  everything  else,  they  certainly  did  not 
possess  a  true  religion.  The  devout  Oxonian  Scholar 
returned  to  England  with  that  humble  workman's  word, 
and  it  was  a  seed  cast  in  the  mind  of  the  sower  who  went 
forth  to  sow,  among  the  many  which  have  since  borne 
fruit  a  hundredfold. 

That  Mohammedan  laid  his  hand  upon  the  fundamental 
anomaly  of  this  country.  We  are  a  civilised  country  in 
everything  but  one,  that  is  religion  ;  that  is  barbarous. 
Its  dogmas  are  derived  from  barbarous  tribes  and  ages. 
We  do  not  use  their  ploughs  nor  other  implements ;  we 
do  not  adopt  their  science  nor  their  arts ;  but  we  establish 
in  the  School  and  the  Church  their  wild  superstitions  of  a 
world  accursed,  man  vicariously  depraved  and  vicariously 
redeemed,  a  deity  demanding  blood,  and  a  hell  of  fire 
and  brimstone.  Educated  people  even  in  the  Churches 
confess  the  barbarism  of  these  beliefs  by  declaring, 
whenever  we  state  them,  that  we  are  caricaturing  their 
faith.  We  quote  them  word  for  word  from  their  creeds 
and  confessions  ;  and  yet  they  say  it  is  misrepresentation 
and  caricature.  No  doubt  it  misrepresents  them,  and  it 
certainly  caricatures  civilised  humanity;  but  there  are  the 
Creeds  in  the  Prayer-book,  and  in  dissenting  Confessions, 
in  the  Catechisms  taught  to  every  generation,  and  any 
one  may  read  them.  Whatever  the  educated  may  secretly 
read  in  the  dogmas,  such  is  their  plain  meaning  to  the 
child  and  the  unlettered  millions. 

Now,  why  is  it  that  civilised  England  teaches  her  people 
a  barbarous  religion  ?  It  is  because  all  progress  in  civilisa- 


THE  MORROW.  125 


tion  must  be  by  free  comparison  and  selection.  In  Science 
we  compare  fact  with  fact,  theory  with  theory,  and  select 
that  which  best  explains  phenomena.  If  a  man  made  a 
discovery  in  India  the  English  man  of  science  does  not 
refuse  it  because  he  was  a  Brahman.  In  Philosophy  we 
do  not  reject  a  statement  by  Aristotle  because  he  was 
a  "  pagan."  We  do  not  in  trade  refuse  the  products  of 
Africa,  Japan,  or  any  country,  because  they  are  from  non- 
Christian  producers.  And  so,  freely  combining  the  select 
advantages  of  the  world,  we  attain  a  high  material  and 
scientific  civilisation.  We  absorb  Greece,  Rome,  Scandi- 
navia, into  our  literature.  We  follow  the  ancient  evolu- 
tional law  of  nature,  which  combined  all  animal  excellences 
■  into  man, — "  the  sum  of  every  creature's  best ;"  and 
which  combines  single  races  to  make  higher  races.  In 
religion  alone  we  have  arrested  the  action  of  this  civilising 
eclectic  law  upon  us.  We  have  isolated  our  religion,  re- 
jected all  contributions  and  criticisms  from  other  religions, 
cut  off  the  natural  streams  of  influence  that  would  have 
fed  and  enlarged  it,  and  compelled  the  law  of  progress  to 
pass  on  over  its  grave. 

It  is  no  consolation  to  know  that  all  other  religions 
have  done  the  same,  as  far  as  they  can.  It  is  too  true. 
Every  historic  religion  has  detached  itself  from  the  living 
body  of  humanity,  and  made  itself  a  mere  fragment ;  each 
takes  up  its  bit  of  the  dissected  map  of  world-experience 
and  cries.  "  behold  here  the  round  world  and  all  that 
dwell  therein  !"  There  is  not  a  Bible  of  any  race  which 
can  be  understood  without  comparison  with  some  other 
Bible  which  its  devotees  scornfully  reject.     There  is  no 


126  CHRISTIANITY. 


religious  prophet  or  teacher  whose  words  are  not  made 
false  if  he  is  seen  in  dislocation,  dissociated  from  other 
teachers  of  his  time,  and  set  up  in  rivalry  to  them.  All 
religions  in  the  world  are  now  crumbling,  and  all  for  the 
same  reason.  There  is  a  longing  for  unity  among  races, 
and  their  sects  are  sundering  them.  The  expansion  of 
commerce  has  revealed  intellectual  and  moral  treasures 
in  every  land  :  while  scholars  seek  them,  priesthoods 
guard  them  from  exportation  and  importation.  Every- 
where sectarianism  still  stands  in  the  way  of  the  free 
spiritual  commerce  of  race  with  race,  and  the  gathering 
together  thereby  of  the  accumulated  experiences  of  all 
climes  and  ages,  which  alone  can  make  a  religious 
civilisation, 

III. 

But  observe  now  all  the  signs  of  our  time  which  tell 
us  what  the  morrow  must  be,  and  what  its  glorious  task  ! 

Within  this  century  the  Bible  Society  has  distributed 
through  the  world,  translated  into  150  languages, 
131,000,000  Bibles.  Yet  in  a  thousand  years  Christ- 
ianity has  not  made  one  million  converts  among  those 
"  pagan  "  races  who  are  so  glad  to  get  the  Bible.  Why 
is  that  ?  Simply  because  the  Bible  is  a  human  book  for 
any  mind  that  can  read  it  with  freedom.  Christianity 
means  that  it  shall  not  be  read  as  a  human  book,  nor 
with  freedom,  but  that  people  must  read  into  it,  or  extort 
out  of  it,  certain  things  which  will  prove  English  sects 
right  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  wrong.  But  the 
Hindoo,  the  Arab,  do  not  want  any  more  compulsion  of 


THE  MORROW.  127 


that  kind.  They  have  had  enough  of  that.  That  is  just 
the  way  they  have  been  reading  the  Vedas  and  the  Koran 
not  to  find  what  was  truly  there,  but  what  it  suited  their 
rulers  should  be  found  there.  Now  this  distribution  of 
Bibles  from  England  gives  them  exactly  what  they  need, 
a  great  sacred  literature  which  they  can  read  as  free  reason- 
ing beings,  under  no  compulsion  to  believe  its  legends  or 
construct  dogmas  out  of  its  poetry.  Those  Bibles  will, 
in  the  end,  liberate  them  from  thraldom  to  the  letter  of 
their  own  books.  It  will  supply  keys  to  their  Scriptures 
and  unseal  the  e  yes  of  millions  to  see  that  truth  and 
beauty  are  monopolised  by  no  race  on  earth.  As  for 
Christ,  reverence  for  him  in  the  East  has  not  had  to 
wait  for  the  diffusion  of  the  Bible.  For  many  centuries 
oriental  writers  have  held  him  in  love  and  honour  as  a 
great  and  good  teacher,  and  they  have  some  beautiful 
traditions  concerning  him  unknown  to  the  West.  They 
reject  with  indignation  the  notion  that  Jesus  was  a 
Christian.  The  Jews  know  that.  Not  long  ago  I  met  a 
Rabbi  and  he  said  to  me,  "  Jesus  was  a  great  Jew,  and 
if  he  were  to  reappear  in  Christendom  he  would  be  in- 
vited tO' preach  in  all  the  Synagogues,  and  crucified  in 
all  the  Churches."  With  what  terms  of  admiration  do 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen  and  the  Brahmos,  and  Moulvi  Syed 
Ameer  Ali,  in  his  "  Life  of  Mohammed,"  speak  of  Christ  ! 
And  yet  they  never  dream  of  becoming  Christians,  which 
would  mean  identifying  Christ  and  themselves  with  all 
the  wickedness  and  cruelties  of  Christian  history,  and 
with  the  vulgar  dogmas  of  missionaries, — dogmas  just  as 
repulsive  as  their  own.     The  Bible  and  Christ  are  wel- 


128  CHRISTIANITY. 


corned  among  them  as  liberators  :  Christianity  comes 
tr)'Lng  to  forge  both  into  fresh  chains  for  them,  and  it  is 
rejected. 

But  while  the  Bible  Society  is  thus  breaking  sectarian 
chains  for  the  rest  of  the  world,  what  is  to  break  the 
chains  of  the  people  here  at  home  ?  There  are  very  few 
readers  of  the  Bible  in  this  country  who  get  at  its  real 
meaning.  It  requires  a  great  deal  of  comparison  with 
other  books, — the  New  Testament  as  well  as  the  Old. 
Even  if  people  try  to  read  intelUgently  they  have  so  long 
been  reading  it  with  prepossessions  derived  from  ignorant 
preachers  that  every  sentence  reflects  their  own  preju- 
dice instead  of  the  thought  that  wrote  it.  What  we  need 
here  is  precisely  what  they  need  there,  namely  Bibles  that 
we  may  read  freely,  under  no  compulsion  to  believe  their 
fables,  nor  to  read  out  of  them  what  is  not  in  them,  to 
suit  the  exigencies  of  systems.  We  shall  learn  that  in  every 
age  and  nation  truth  has  been  shining  abroad  like  the 
sunlight,  and  beneath  it  have  everywhere  bloomed  the 
flowers  of  virtue.  We  shall  learn  what  are  weeds  in  our 
own  soil  by  seeing  the  corresponding  weeds,  flourishing 
where  we  are  not  bribed  by  any  interest  or  custom  to 
pronounce  them  flowers  or  fruits.  The  Bibles  of  the 
world  will  mutually  unlock  each  other,  and  a  great  inter- 
change of  world-experiences  take  place  from  which 
universal  religion  shall  emerge. 

I  hold  it  a  great  promise  of  the  morrow  that  a  German 
orientalist,  naturalised  in  England,  and  associated  with  its 
oldest  University  (I'rofessor  Max  Muller),  has  summoned 
the  scholars  of  Europe  to  translate  into  every  Western 


THE  MORROW.  129 


language  the  Bibles  of  the  world.  They  have  responded 
and  are  now  at  their  work.  When  those  books  are 
gathered  together  they  who  now  hear  only  the  voice  of 
Syria  and  Greece  will  hear  the  voice  of  Humanity.  We 
shall  learn  that  errors  which  have  gained  new  vigour 
in  the  West  by  being  grafted  on  our  civilisation,  have 
flourished  in  many  lands  ages  ago,  have  been  tried  and 
found  wanting,  and  that  what  we  have  been  sending 
out  to  ancient  races  as  divine  truth  have  been  the  extinct 
fossils  of  their  own  fabulous  ages. 

The  Morrow,  then,  will  not  take  away  our  Bible.  On 
the  contrary  it  will  for  the  first  time  really  give  us  our 
Bible,  by  illuminating  it.  It  will  enlarge  it  by  adding  to 
it  the  manifold  Scriptures,  now  rejected,  which  make  up 
the  canon  of  revelation  to  Humanity. 


IV. 

Nor  will  the  Morrow  take  away  Christ.  It  will  restore 
him  to  the  World  from  which  patristic  metaphysics  have 
removed  him.  It  will  no  longer  be  considered  any  degra- 
dation to  call  him  a  man.  He  will  be  seen  as  one  of 
a  high  and  holy  fraternity  of  seers  and  teachers,  stretch- 
ing through  all  ages,  whom  no  one  race  can  claim,  who 
speak  for  universal  reason  and  right. 

Every  new  day  must  build  on  the  work  of  the  days 
that  have  passed  and  sum  them  up  to  its  larger  total. 
The  day  that  has  passed  of  every  religion  has  been 
sectarian,  national ;  but  that  means  also  that  there  has 
been  a  distribution  of  labour.     It  was  not  without  its 

I 


130  CHRISTIANITY. 


Value.  Each  race  has  given  its  wealth  and  learning  to 
the  work  of  preserving  and  popularising  its  own  records 
and  traditions  to  an  extent  which  could  only  have  re- 
sulted from  a  belief  that  the  whole  of  truth  was  with 
them.  They  builded  better  then  they  knew.  They 
have  each  brought  their  little  block  of  stone,  under 
impression  that  it  was  the  whole  temple,  to  a  point  where 
comparative  study  may  take  it  up  and  fit  it  to  every 
other  block,  that  the  sacred  edifice  of  Humanity  may 
arise. 

Already  we  have  discovered  signs  of  the  universality  of 
the  great  Teachers  with  which  the  sects  of  the  world  label 
themselves  so  exclusively.  One  sign  is  the  moral  names 
they  bear.  It  is  rare  that  any  great  religious  founder 
bears  the  name  given  him  by  his  family,  or  a  name  dis- 
tinctive of  his  tribe  or  nation.  Their  names  are  titles 
conferred  by  the  moral  sense  and  enthusiasm  of  man- 
kind. Sakya  Muni  lives  in  the  ages  as  Buddha, — the 
enlightened.  The  great  Hindoo  law-giver  bears  the 
Vedic  name  Manu,  signifying  the  Father  of  Mankind. 
The  family  name  Ahmed  becomes  Mohammed,  "  the 
praised."  We  do  not  know  the  original  names  of  some 
great  religious  teachers, — Zoroaster,  for  instance,  a  title 
variously  interpreted.  Nor  do  we  know  the  name  first 
given  to  Christ.  Jesus  (meaning  Saviour)  and  Christ 
(the  anointed)  are  manifestly  titles  bestowed  after  his 
work  had  ended  and  his  greatness  been  recognised. 
Thus  in  their  very  names  these  men  are  signed  with 
their  relation  to  the  moral  consciousness  of  man,  and 
Raised  out  of  the  national  into  the  universal  spirit. 


THE  MORROW.  131 


Another  notable  fact  is  this.  The  influence  of  the 
greatest  religious  Teachers  has  been  felt  mainly  in  other 
countries  than  their  o^vn.  Not  in  India,  Buddha's  native 
land,  does  Buddhism  flourish ;  the  religion  of  Zoroaster 
is  almost  unknown  in  Persia,  where  it  originated  ;  neither 
Moses  nor  Christ  is  the  chosen  prophet  of  Palestine. 
This  rule,  like  the  other,  is  not  invariable,  but  it  is 
general  enough  to  verify  the  ancient  proverb  that  a 
prophet  is  not  without  honour  save  in  his  own  country. 
Nor  is  the  reason  far  to  seek.  Partly,  no  doubt,  it  is 
because  no  mass  of  people  have  the  culture  required  to 
recognise  greatness  in  guise  of  the  familiar ;  but  mainly 
it  is  because  the  great  man  always  comes  as  a  reformer, 
and  is  brought  into  immediate  collision  with  the  preju- 
dices, priesthoods,  powers  of  his  own  locality.  His  local 
warfare  is  left  behind  when  his  words  travel  to  other 
regions.  The  Pharisees  of  England  never  dream  that 
Christ  meant  them  when  he  rebuked  their  class  in 
Jerusalem.  Garibaldi  was  welcomed  by  lords  in  England, 
but  many  an  English  Garibaldi  has  been  despised  and 
rejected.  The  facts  show  that  all  men  hunger  and  thirst 
for  truth,  and  always  welcome  it  when  permitted  to  re- 
ceive it ;  and  their  rulers  more  readily  permit  it  when  it 
comes  as  foreign  learning  than  when  it  involves  internal 
reform  and  schism.  They  also  show  that  the  power  by 
which  the  great  prevail  is  a  pure  human  power,  detached 
from  local  complications,  freed  from  tribal  and  sectarian 
paltriness.  Thus  the  teacher  whom  Judea  crucified 
triumphed  in  Greece  and  Rome  under  the  Graeco-Roman 
name  of  Christ ;   and  he  did  so  through   the  force  of 


132  CHRISTIANITY. 


another  great  man  who  cast  aside  his  provincialism  even 
to  his  name,  Saul,*  and  went  forth  to  translate  Jesus 
from  a  person  to  a  spirit  and  restate  his  doctrine  so  that 
it  might  become,  in  a  high  sense,  all  things  to  all  men. 
That  was  the  culmination  of  Christ's  true  influence  :  it 
has  been  already  related  how  his  spirit  passed  away  and 
his  lifeless  form  was  entombed  in  Christianity. 

But  behold  a  third  badge  of  the  great  religious 
Teachers.  Each  nation  preserves  the  legends  and 
marvels  connected  with  the  founder  of  its  own  religion, 
because  it  thinks  that  these  give  him  an  authority  above 
all  the  other  prophets.  But  now  comes  Comparative 
Mythology,  and  shows  the  legends  and  marvels  to  be 
substantially  the  same.  The  legends  of  Moses,  Zoroaster, 
Buddha,  and  Christ  so  closely  resemble  each  other  that 
they  cease  to  give  a  distinctive  authority  to  either,  so  far 
as  his  teaching  claims  to  reveal  things  beyond  universal 
reason.  Jesus  descended  from  heaven,  was  born  of  a 
virgin  named  Mary,  wrought  miracles,  and  ascended  to 
heaven  from  the  top  of  the  Mount  of  Olives  where 
Catholics  still  worship  his  last  footprint  on  earth.  But  it 
was  already  on  record  that  Buddha  descended  from 
Heaven,  was  immaculately  conceived  and  born  of  Maia, 
wrought  miracles,  then  ascended  from  Adam's  Peak  in 
Ceylon  where  Buddhists  still  adore  his  last  foot-print  on 
earth.      Two  hundred  millions  believe  the  story  about 

*  It  is  possible  (even  though  Chrysostom  denies  it),  that  Paul 
was  preferred  not  only  because  it  was  Hellenistic,  but  because 
Saul  seemed  related  to  craXctieiv,  to  persecute,  and  Paul  recalled 
irarcracr^at  to  protect. 


THE  MORROW.  133 


Jesus;  three  hundred  millions  believe  the  same  about 
Buddha.  And  yet  with  the  same  miraculous  authentica- 
tion one  of  these  prophets  is  held  to  have  revealed  that 
after  death  each  soul  passes  before  a  heavenly  Judge,  and 
thence  to  endless  joy  or  torment ;  while  the  other  prophet, 
with  the  same  credentials,  taught  that  at  death  each  soul 
sinks  to  everlasting  repose,  if  not  annihilation.  What 
will  those  oriental  people  think  when  they  find  from 
those  miUions  of  Bibles  sent  out  to  them  that  the  same 
signs  and  wonders  which  are  attesting  one  thing  about 
the  future  in  Asia  are  attesting  a  different  thing  in  Europe? 
And  what  will  our  Christians  think  when  they  presently 
have  the  Eastern  Bibles  and  make  the  same  discovery  ? 
Why  the  light  of  the  new  day  will  dawn  for  both  East  and 
West.  They  will  see  in  the  legends  and  fables  the  broidery 
of  the  mantle  which  falls  from  prophet  to  prophet.  Its 
decoration  is  the  hereditary  folklore  of  the  ignorant,  but 
it  is  sacred  to  them,  and  their  superstitions  follow  only 
where  their  hearts  have  gone.  It  is  the  deep  homage  of 
the  poor  that  they  believe  of  Buddha  all  the  legends  told 
of  Vishnu,  or  bring  their  sweetest  fables  about  Apollo  or 
Minerva  to  twine  them  around  the  brow  of  Christ  and 
Mary.  The  legends  and  miracles  concerning  the  great 
personal  religions,  being  nearly  the  same,  cannot  on  the 
morrow  attest  their  several  and  contrarious  visions  ;  but 
all  the  more  \\ill  those  signs  attest  that  each  was  in  his  time 
and  place  the  highest,  truest  man  ;  a  true  saviour  of  the 
people  about  whose  neck  they  clung ;  who  touched  the 
depth  of  their  heart  and  revealed  its  treasures  ;  at  whose 
grave  women  planted  mystical  flowers  as  they  wept  for  them- 


134  CHRISTIANITY. 


selves  and  their  children  ;  and  all  transmitted  a  blessed 
memory  that  gradually  called  around  it  the  old  fables 
which  had  hallowed  every  prophet  till  he  passed  into 
abstract  deification,  then  fallen  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
next  worthy  to  wear  their  emblem.  Miracle  is  not  God's 
sign,  but  sign  of  the  homage  of  the  poor.  And  when  this 
is  realised,  as  the  morning  shall  reveal  it,  then  shall  each 
great  Soul  rise  from  his  sectarian  tomb,  and  take  his  place 
in  the  fraternity  of  Saviours,  and  each  shall  bring  in  his 
arms  all  his  sheaves  from  the  seed  he  has  sown  in  human 
hearts,  for  the  common  garner  of  Humanity. 


V. 

But,  ah,  you  say,  what  will  the  morrow  reveal  to  us 
about  God,  and  about  immortality  ?  What  a  confession 
of  the  emptiness  of  all  sectarian  religions  that  at  the  end 
of  so  many  ages  they  have  left  the  educated  world  without 
certainty  on  the  very  points — God  and  Immortality — upon 
which  they  have  concentrated  their  power  !  So  many 
millions  sacrificed,  so  much  wealth  diverted  from  man  to 
God  and  from  the  present  to  the  future,  only  to  leave  us 
in  scepticism  at  last ! 

Of  one  thing  be  sure,— the  Morrow  will  reverse  all  that. 
It  is  plain  that  no  more  light  is  to  be  got  from  the  sectarian 
day  that  has  set,  or  from  its  Afterglow  that  now  fades. 
Christian  enthusiasm  is  spent.  The  strongest  manifesta- 
tions of  its  life  in  our  time  have  been  Mormonism, 
Shakerism,  Moodyism,  and  Spirit-rapping.  Sectarianism 
has  run  to  seed  in  Christendom,  and  just  as  much  in  the 


THE  MORROW.  135 


religions  of  Asia.  All  our  hope  of  new  light  now  comes 
of  the  liberation  of  the  human  mind  in  every  part  of  the 
world  from  these  other-worldly  methods  which  have  so 
conspicuously  failed ;  and  the  concentration  of  the  com- 
bined energies  of  all  the  mind,  heart  and  wealth  of  the 
earth  to  the  work  of  civilising  religion  and  raising  it  to 
equality  with  our  material  and  scientific  progress.  We 
have  found  that  gazing  into  the  sky  does  not  reveal  God, 
now  let  us  try  what  will  come  of  exploring  the  earth,  and 
man,  and  history.  The  Chinese  sage  said  to  men, 
"  Since  you  do  not  yet  know  man  how  can  you  know 
God  ?  Since  you  do  not  comprehend  life  how  can  you 
comprehend  death  ?  "  Some  of  us  believe — I  believe — 
that  eyes  turned  from  phantom  gods  have  caught  glimpses 
of  a  divine  life  in  the  evolution  of  nature,  and  the 
mystical  movement  of  the  heart  of  man.  Already  some 
have  listened  deep,  and  heard  a  sweet  music  to  which 
the  ages  keep  time,  and  man  ever  marches  to  a  happy 
destiny.  The  universe  is  the  shrine  of  Reason ;  it  is  the 
abode  of  Love ;  it  is  the  temple  of  Conscience.  These 
we  have  derived  from  it,  and  from  us  they  shall  return  to 
it  in  that  perfect  trust  which  no  surrounding  darkness  can 
extinguish,  not  even  the  darkness  of  the  grave.  But  it  is 
with  these  our  larger  hope  is  ascending.  We  know  that 
Reason  has  hardly  begun  to  tell  its  story,  that  Love  has 
been  drooping  in  the  dungeon  of  fear,  and  Conscience 
hardly  awakened  from  the  drugs  of  superstition.  They 
have  yet  to  fulfil  their  career  in  religion  which  has  so 
long  denied  them.  They  can  find  their  freedom  and 
fulness  only  in  the  unity  of  mankind.     Of  old  the  races 


136  CHRISTIANITY. 


Streamed  out  through  the  earth,  Hke  pulses  from  the 
heart  of  Nature,  that  every  member  of  the  body  might 
be  fed  from  a  common  life ;  and  though  member  has 
warred  with  member,  still  has  their  secret  life  centred  in 
that  one  heart.  Now  let  the  day  of  harmony  dawn  ! 
Now  let  member  co-operate  with  member,  and  nation 
say  to  nation,  "I  have  need  of  thee  !" 

What  !  some  may  say,  have  these  half-civilised  people 
in  the  East,  who  have  no  railways  or  telegraphs,  any  con- 
tribution to  religion  which  we  have  need  of?  Ask 
Philology  what  it  has  got  from  their  languages, — from 
Zend,  Pali,  Sanskrit,  spoken  there  when  their  people 
were  much  more  barbarous.  Science  will  enter  a  new 
kingdom  by  doorway  of  a  beede.  The  very  thing  we  all 
have  need  to  get  rid  of  is  this  same  conceit  about  our 
own  religious,  condition.  There  was  a  day  when  even 
learned  men  believed  this  little  earth  was  the  centre  of 
things :  when  the  earth  lost  that  conceit  of  its  own  im- 
portance man  gained  a  universe.  And  when  we  feel  that 
Christianity  is  but  one  race's  sect  among  others,  some  of 
which  are  more  important,  we  shall  enter  into  a  spiritual 
Cosmos,  under  which  all  sects  will  sink  and  all  souls 
arise.  All  this  points  to  the  future,  Christianity, 
Mohammedanism,  all  sects,  are  powerless  to  rule  or 
name  the  coming  day  because  they  have  no  supreme 
faith  in  it ;  their  largest  hope  for  all  coming  days  is  that 
they  may  duplicate  the  days  that  are  gone,  or  carry  them 
backward  in  closer  retrogressive  resemblance  to  the  Year 
One  of  Crescent  or  Cross.  Their  most  refined  state- 
ments bring  the  past  to  dim  our  hope  of  prophets  nobler 


THE  MORROW.  137 


than  theirs,  to  he  born  of  the  enthusiasm  of  Humanity. 
To  cast  away  their  authority  is  the  first  essential  step 
towards  turning  our  face  to  the  sunrise.  While  Science, 
Art,  Civilisation  are  bending  all  their  eyes  forward,  this 
anomaly  that  religion  should  ever  look  backward  cannot 
last.  The  highest  religion  of  to-day  is  to  look  and 
labour  for  a  nobler  day. 

Nor  can  I  think  that  new  day  so  distant.  For  this 
matter  the  world  of  men  means  mainly  all  those  who 
think.  The  thinkers  of  the  world  are  but  thinly  divided 
by  veils  of  language  and  tricks  of  exi)ression ;  speedily 
will  they  pierce  these  and  discover  that  round  the 
world  hearts  beat  with  one  moral  blood,  and  eyes  see 
by  one  and  the  same  sunlight.  And  as  thought  moves 
so  will  the  most  motionless  masses  gravitate  ;  and  every 
sect  in  the  world  be  subtly  consumed,  through  and 
through  by  that  popular  disgust  of  bigotry  and  hypocrisy 
which  will  emanate  from  the  fairly  awakened  conscience 
and  intellect  of  nuankind. 


THE    END. 


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